Olmsted’s Many Projects Beyond Central Park
Frederick Law Olmsted, a master of his craft
There isn’t enough space on a single post to outline all of Olmsted’s other projects beyond Central Park.
Suffice it to say that they start with Prospect Park in Brooklyn and run clear across the country where he designed the master plan for the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University in Palo Alto.
The quality of his work was recognized by his contemporaries, who showered him with dozens of prestigious commissions. His inspired plans set a standard for excellence that continues to influence landscape architecture in the United States to this day.
But that wasn’t all that occupied his unbounded energy. His other lines of achievement included his activism in conservation and the National Park system, as well as providing medical services to the Union Army during the Civil War.
Oh, and by the way, Olmsted turned out to be a very late bloomer who didn’t find his footing as a landscape architect until his mid-thirties! So I guess that means there’s hope for the rest of us (including, I might add, Christopher Middleton, the main character in my young adult adventure series, Central Park Story).
