Home » Trending » April 26, 2013 – Happy Birthday, Frederick Law Olmsted

April 26, 2013 – Happy Birthday, Frederick Law Olmsted

Here’sna fellow who was a landscape architect before there was such a thingnas a landscape architect!
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nOlmsted,nwho was born on this date in 1822, was also a journalist and a publicnadministrator, and he probably called his work with landscapesn“designing,” but many now say that he was the father of landscapenarchitecture.

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nWhatndo landscape architects do? Well, Olmsted and a man named CalvertnVaux designed New York City’s Central Park and Brooklyn’s ProspectnPark. They designed other major parks in other cities as well.

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nAnlandscape architect designs outdoor public areas and landmarks. Shenor he studies existing elements of an area—buildings, skylines,ntrees, lakes or streams—and come up with a concept of what thenoutcome should be. The hard part, of course, is figuring out whatnplants and sprinkler systems, paving and storm drains, trees andnstructures should be installed in order to achieve that outcome. Thenjob is a combination of architecture, urban planning, gardening,nenvironmental analysis, and recreation planning. n

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nCentralnPark is a huge public park at the center of Manhattan in New YorknCity. When it opened in 1857, the park had 778 acres of land (it isnnow larger, with 843 acres). These days, about 35 million peoplenvisit the park every year—making this the most visited city park innthe U.S.

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nCentralnPark has several lakes and ponds, plenty of walking paths, severalnbridle paths (for people on horseback), two ice-skating rinks (one ofnwhich becomes a swimming pool in the summer!), a zoo, a formalngarden, a wildlife sanctuary, a forest. AND there is an outdoorntheater, a “castle” with a nature center, a marionette theater,nand an historic carousel. AND there are at least 3 fountains, 7 majornlawns, a meadow, a huge boulder outcropping, smaller swaths of grass,nand multiple enclosed playgrounds for kids.

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nIt’sna great place! One of my favorite spots is the boulder area, andnanother is the Alice in Wonderland statue.

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nThenthing is, these lakes and forests and meadows and bouldernoutcroppings look so natural. It looks very much as if Olmsted andnVaux just had to plan a few paths in between some great naturalnfeatures. However, almost all these features are landscaped. Theynwere carefully designed to look NOT designed! Cool, huh?

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nDidnyou know…?

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nMorengunpowder was used to clear the area than was used at the Battle ofnGettysburg during the Civil War.

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nDuringnconstruction, more than 18,500 cubic yards of topsoil were brought innfrom New Jersey, and more than 10 million cartloads of rocks and soilnwas taken out of the park! More than 4 million trees, shrubs, andnother plants were transplanted in the park.

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nSheepnused to graze on the Sheep Meadow in Central Park, but they werenmoved to a more rural area of New York in 1934. City officialsnworried that they would be killed and eaten by hungry people duringnthe depression!

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nAlsonon this date:

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nRichter Scale Day 

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nNaturalistnand artist John Audubon’s birthday

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nAnniversarynof a major meteor shower

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