Landscape designer film: Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing America

[Beringia]

I watched it last night on the free library steaming service Kanopy. He was so amazing it took my breath away. He designed so many parks like Central Park, parks in Boston and Buffalo, New York. He designed the city I live next to, Riverside Illinois. And it is such an intricate design, I always get lost when I go there, but it is also such a charming city.



You can watch it on Youtube

Here is a link to his design of Riverside, Illinois on the New York City Public library digital collection

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/1859fcc0-8137-0135-706d-006fbffad2d9?canvasIndex=0




After nearly two decades of diverse experiences, in 1865, Olmsted turned full-time to the practice of landscape architecture. That year, he returned to New York from California to finish Central Park and to design Prospect Park with his business partner, Calvert Vaux. Over the next 30 years, Olmsted created hundreds of designs, literally defining the field of landscape architecture and illustrating the many ways it could improve the human condition. In his work, and over the course of his career, he employed “key principles” that shaped his design.

Although we think of Olmsted as a park maker, in fact, Olmsted designed every kind of landscape, including parks and parkway systems, diverse recreation areas, college campuses, urban and suburban areas, planned communities, cemeteries and specialized landscapes for arboreta and expositions.

In so doing, he advanced the democratic value of public spaces and the capacity for nature to unite people and improve public health.

https://olmsted.org/frederick-law-olmsted/work/