Commentary

Essays and articles by important contributors to the fields of garden design and landscape design.

Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903)

A United States landscape architect and a prolific writer, famous for designing many well known urban parks, including Central Park in New York, New York, the country's oldest coordinated system of public parks and parkways in Buffalo, New York, the country's oldest state park, the Niagara Reservation in Niagara Falls, New York, Mount Royal Park in Montreal, the Metropolitan Parks System in Boston, Massachusetts, Cherokee Park (and the entire parks and parkway system) in Louisville, Kentucky, as well as Jackson Park, Washington Park and Midway Plaisance in Chicago for the World's Columbian Exposition.

Contents

• Man And The Landscape - No one but a prisoner in a windowless house can escape being influenced by the beauty or ugliness of his outdoor surroundings.
• Man's Influence Over Landscape - The appearance of the land and the objects upon it generally results from the control which man himself exerts over the materials and forces of nature just as truly and as completely as the sculptor controls the appearance of the natural stone which he shapes.
• Appreciation of Landscape Beauty - Rules, recipes, and arbitrary preconceptions, like that landscape slogan, reflecting a half-truth, "Avoid straight lines," are the resort of the lazy and the superficial in matters of landscape as in all branches of art.
• Landscape Design As A Fine Art - Landscape design may be regarded as the art of choosing wisely between any practical alternatives which present themselves to us in dealing with land and the objects upon it.
• Qualities Peculiar to Landscape Compositions - The creations of landscape architecture — namely landscapes — are made by altering, adapting, or perfecting real landscapes existing in advance as such, much as an architect alters an old building to adapt it to new uses while respectfully conserving its fine qualities.
• Importance of Utilizing Qualities Making for Unity - Since without unity there is no beauty but only distraction, it becomes peculiarly important to note other inherent qualities making for unity in landscapes.
• Humanized Mode in Landscape Design - The older, simpler, and more direct mode, the "humanized" mode, frankly appeals, as do most works of art, to the deep-rooted human pleasure in exhibitions of the skill and power of man, and in evidences of man's control over nature.
• Naturalistic Mode in Landscape Design - A simple example of the naturalistic is found in the treatment of a trail through a mountain wilderness, where the mere removal of obstructing vegetation may open beautiful landscapes.
• Historic Styles in Landscape Design - Several designs in the "grand manner," which extended influence over Europe, even into Russia, and were often carried to extremes by incompetent designers, invited, as we have seen, a reaction towards the naturalistic mode.

See Also

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