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Exhibition examines the social concerns underpinning the works of Frederick Law Olmsted

2019-07-01T17:25:00-04:00

Big Plans: Picturing Social Reform, an exhibition currently on view at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, examines how landscape architects and photographers concretized contemporary social critiques through their work in American cities during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Plan of Existing and Proposed Parks and Boulevard drawn by Daniel Burnham. Image courtesy of Harvard Libraries.

The exhibition highlights city plans, maps, photographs, and other archival materials to showcase how seminal urban design efforts by Frederick Law Olmsted, Calvert Vaux, Charles Eliot, and Daniel Burnham were inspired and shaped by the photographic works of Lewis Wickes Hine and by the cultural concerns of social reformer Isabella Stewart Gardner.

Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine showing children playing in a tenemenet alleyway. Image courtesy of Art Institute of Chicago.

Included in the exhibition are Olmsted and Vaux's plans for New York City's Central Park, Boston's Emerald Necklace, and Ch...

Artificial nature: Frederick Law Olmsted and the invention of landscape architecture

2016-08-30T12:52:00-04:00

An unmistakable irony creeps vinelike through Olmsted’s landscape theory: It takes a lot of artifice to create convincing “natural” scenery. Everything in Central Park is man-made; the same is true of most of Olmsted’s designs. They are not imitations of nature so much as idealizations, like the landscape paintings of the Hudson River School. Each Olmsted creation was the product of painstaking sleight of hand, requiring enormous amounts of labor and expense.

For more on Olmsted and his parks today, check out some past articles:

First commemorative statue of Frederick Law Olmsted to be unveiled in North Carolina

2016-04-15T21:01:00-04:00

The first statue commemorating landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted will make its public debut in time for Earth Day at The North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville next Friday, April 22. One would assume that Olmsted already has statues of himself in public parks across the U.S., considering that he is regarded as “the Father of American Landscape Architecture” and is the co-architect of New York City's fiercely loved Central Park, which he and Calvert Vaux were selected to design after winning a competition in 1858.

Finally achieving their long-time vision of building a statue of Olmsted, the Arboretum commissioned Philadelphia-based figurative sculptor Zenos Frudakis to design the 8-foot-tall bronze statue of Olmsted, who is portrayed holding an abstract topographic map. Frudakis spent the last two years working diligently to create a sculpture that embodies Olmsted's lasting significance in American landscape design.

Oil painting of Frederick Law Olmsted by John Singer Sargent, ...

Society of Architectural Historians Announces 2015 Award Winners and Fellows

2015-04-22T23:41:00-04:00

The Society of Architectural Historians announced the winners of the 2015 Publication Awards and the 2015 SAH Award for Film and Video at its 68th Annual International Conference Awards Ceremony in Chicago, Ill., on April 16. The Society also named four individuals as SAH Fellows for their lifelong contributions to the field of architectural history.

2015 Publication Award Recipients
Each year, SAH presents publication awards honoring excellence in architectural history, urban history, landscape history and historic preservation scholarship as well as architectural exhibition catalogues.

The winners of the Society’s 2015 Publication Awards are listed below. The 2016 award cycle opens on June 1, 2015. For more information, visit sah.org/publication-awards.

Alice Davis Hitchcock Book Award

Richard Harris, Building a Market: The Rise of the Home Improvement Industry, 1914–1960 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012)

Christopher Curtis Mead, Making Modern Paris: Victor Baltard’s Central ...

Richardson-Olmsted Complex Reuse to Include Boutique Hotel

2013-01-28T15:29:00-05:00

The redevelopment of the Richardson Olmsted Complex will...transform the former Buffalo State Hospital from a place of healing to one of hospitality. The design builds upon Olmsted's original intent while conserving existing resources, preserving the fabric of the space, and creating connections and purpose.