1900 First Landscape Architecture Program
Harvard University establishes the world’s first academic program in landscape architecture in 1900. Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. is hired as an instructor.
Harvard University establishes the world’s first academic program in landscape architecture in 1900. Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. is hired as an instructor.
Frederick Law Olmsted was a member of the design team lead by architect Daniel Burnham who brought classical architecture on a grand scale to Chicago’s World Columbian Exposition. Urban planning and the height of Neo-Classicism inspired the “white city” created for the Exposition.
A group of women from Georgia organize the Ladies Garden Club of Athens, recognized as the first women’s gardening society of its kind.
The emergence of the Arts and Crafts movement shaped architectural and artistic trends of the period. The movement developed in England in response to industrial consumerism and its ideals–simple traditional craftsmanship–flourished in North America. Early stages of the movement are often associated with Aestheticism which advocated “art for art’s sake.”
English art critic John Ruskin “formulate[s] a theory by which architecture could be judged by its dependence on natural form, and ornament was only acceptable when it was clearly derived from natural sources.” The contrived, exotic gardens of the Victorian era quickly became commonplace, unnatural, and out of fashion.
The W. Atlee Burpee & Co. of Philadelphia is founded and later becomes the largest mail-order seed company in the world.
The Centennial Exposition’s Horticultural Hall in Philadelphia showcases exotic specimens and garden displays to millions of visitors.
Frederick Law Olmsted creates a plan for the design of the U.S. Capitol grounds in Washington, D.C., with drives, paths, trees, fountains, and terraces.
Arnold Arboretum is founded by Harvard University, making it the oldest public arboretum in North America.
Congress establishes Yellowstone as the first National Park, though few guidelines or funds are assigned to preserve it.
Both architecture and landscape design in America were culturally influenced by European Victorianism. American families with “old money” designed summerhouses, decorated with ornate accessories, and cultivated lawns for leisurely outdoor activities.
From 1861-1865 the Civil War interrupts the rise of horticultural activity by curtailing the “embellishment of gardens and decoration of grounds.”
Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux win the commission for New York’s Central Park which spurred the creation of parks across the United States. Olmsted was firmly established as the foremost landscape architect of the time, designing public commissions and private estates alike.
Horticulturalist and writer Andrew Jackson Downing publishes the first edition of “A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening Adapted to North America.” In the book he introduces what is later considered the “American Dream”: “… an attachment to a certain spot, and a desire to render that place attractive—a feeling which seems […]
As developments in streetcar transportation make it more convenient to commute from crowded and unsanitary urban centers, middle-class families relocate to the outskirts of cities. Many wealthy urban dwellers also purchase country estates and revive an interest in the cultivation of gardens and preserving the natural landscape.