Frederick Law Olmsted

“ On the immediate borders of the new roads, and on the lines of certain vistas opening from them, the surface of the ground and the foliage appear varied and picturesque, and there are certain features of scenic interest, as a cascade and grotto, the rock of which was brought from the distant forest of Fontainebleau and skilfully wrought into masses with patches of concrete imitation of stone. The greater part of the old wood remained, as far as the operations of improvement are concerned, little changed and as uninteresting as a wood might be. ”

“ If a piece of ground of one or two acres in the midst of a busy town is laid out and managed with a view to providing upon it the greatest practicable degree of plant beauty in trees, shrubs, flowers, and turf, and on the same general principles that a private garden for the same purpose would be, it will be of comparatively little use; for the walks will probably be indirect, the low planting of the outer parts will obscure the general view for passers by, and there will be frequent crowding and jostling and disturbance of quiet. ”

“ These consist in each case either of a long broad walk pleasantly bordered and leading to fine views, or a few acres of smooth turf with shaded borders. Most villages in England have a private park near them, which people are allowed to use. When this is not the case, even a hamlet almost invariably has at least a bit of cricket ground or common, where, on benches under a patriarchal oak or elm, the old people meet to gossip and watch the sports of the vigorous youth. ”

“ In the larger part of the civilized world, circumstances are as unfavorable to park-like scenery as to grand scenery in the vicinity of large towns. The climate of France is nowhere as favorable to it as that of Great Britain, and even in the north it cannot be found in perfection unless on unusually suitable soil. In the south of France, in Italy, and on all the borders of the Mediterranean, in Mexico and California, and in short wherever a rich close perennial turf cannot be established, parks properly so called ought not to be attempted. ”

“ It is true that, when a suburban park is very spacious relatively to the number of people resorting to it for park recreation, a limited use of the larger turf areas for athletic exercises will injure it but little; but their frequent use for such purposes, especially if large assemblages of spectators are likely to be attracted, will be destructive of the value of the ground as a park, in the specific sense of the term. It is also to be considered that the proper rules and police arrangements for a park are different from those for a parade, ball, or gymnasium ground, or for a race course. ”

“ As a general rule, each element in their scenery is simple, natural to the soil and climate, and unobtrusive; and yet the passing observer is very strongly impressed with the manner in which views are successively opened before him through the innumerable combinations into which the individually modest elements constantly rearrange themselves; views which often possess every quality of complete and impressive landscape compositions. ”

“ In the Central park of New York it is 100 acres, and there is a constant public demand for its enlargement, which can only be met by reducing the verdant elements of landscape, and consequently the benefit to be obtained by the use of the park. In a public park for a city, therefore, the purpose of establishing such natural beauty as soil, climate, and topography would otherwise allow to be aimed at, must be greatly sacrificed under the necessity of providing accommodations for the travel and repose of many thousands of men and horses ”

“ But beyond this museum of incongruous objects there is a part in which there is natural and very beautiful scenery both open and wooded, and much of it is simple. The keeping of the ground employs 600 men. Stockholm has a great variety of delightful waterside rural walks; but the chief object of pride with its people is the Djurgard or deer park, which is a large tract of undulating ground about 3 m. ”

“ Sites of much natural grandeur or even of bold picturesqueness are, therefore, to be selected for a park only where all necessary improvements for the convenience of a great number of visitors can be so managed that they will in some way strengthen rather than weaken the prevailing character. ”

“ Private and public parks differ only in the extent of their accommodations for certain purposes, and most of the public parks in Europe are old private parks adapted to public use. When this is not the case, and a park for public use has to be formed essentially from the bare ground, its value will chiefly depend on provisions that cannot be fully matured or have their best operation for many years after their groundwork is established. ”

“ Louis, Cincinnati, Montreal, and San Francisco have since each acquired land for one or more parks of considerable extent, the average being over 500 acres. As in the case of New York, the selection of ground has often been made more with reference to other considerations than to that of fitness for the intended use. Some are as yet only held for future use, while in others provisions essentially temporary, and which will be in the way of substantial improvement, are made; none are so far complete and well fitted as fairly to illustrate the ends which a park should be designed to serve. ”

“ A recognition of the fact that the parks were much more beautiful than the kept grounds when thus fashioned, led early in the 16th century to the art of landscape gardening, or, as it is more generally called out of England, landscape architecture. The aim of the new art was, while still keeping the park fenced off, to manage the pleasure grounds in such a way that they would provide a harmonious and appropriate foreground to landscapes extending over the park, and to make such changes in the park itself as would improve the composition of these landscapes. ”

“ As roads which radiate from a town are usually more important to be kept open than those which cross them, and as land near a town is relatively more needed for other uses than that more distant, it is commonly better that the breadth of the site should increase with its distance from the nearest point to the town, as in Prospect park, Brooklyn, N. Y. In the improvement of the site, attractive and suitable scenery has to be formed, and unsuitable elements of existing scenery changed or obscured ”

“ Buffalo is forming the most complete system of recreation grounds of any city in the United States. It will consist of an inland suburban park of 300 acres, of very quiet rural character, with an ample approach from the centre of the city, and parkways 200 ft. wide extending from it in opposite directions, one to a promenade overlooking Lake Erie, the other to a parade ground and a garden on the opposite side of the town. ”

“ Hence, when the most suitable ground near a town for these purposes adjoins that which is most suitable for a park, it is yet much better that there should be a marked division between them. Public buildings can be reconciled with the purposes of a park only in a limited degree. Ground about any building designed for an important public service should be laid out with a view, first, to convenience of communication with it ”

“ Phœnix park at Dublin (1,752 acres) is a fine upland meadow fringed and dotted with trees, but badly laid out and badly kept, being much larger than the town requires or can afford to take suitable care of. — The old towns of the continent have generally provided themselves with recreation grounds by outgrowing their ancient borders of wall and moat and glacis, razing the wall, filling part of the moat, and so, with more or less skilful management of the materials, making the groundwork of a garden in the natural style. ”

“ It divides and overpowers what might otherwise be a pleasing landscape expanse, and no attempt has been made to mitigate the harshness of the invasion. Parts of Hyde park have lately been made into gardens, and in these during parts of the summer there is a very brilliant display of flowers, “specimens,” and subtropical plants; but the old trees are disappearing more rapidly than young ones are brought forward; the turf is not well kept, and to avoid its destruction in many parts iron hurdles are placed along the walks. ”

“ The problem is sufficiently difficult under the simplest conditions, and it is undesirable that it should be unnecessarily complicated by a requirement to provide for various purposes which have nothing in common with that of tranquillizing rest and exercise, and to which the element of landscape beauty is not essential. Soldiers, for example, drill and manœuvre, horses race, gymnasts and ball players exercise, on a piece of flat ground surrounded by buildings as well as in the glades of a wood. ”

“ Several houses which were originally private villas are used as refectories; the river is well adapted to pleasure boating; the spaces are so large that few restrictions on the movements of visitors are necessary; and in spite of the defects to which allusion has been made, the ground offers better and larger opportunities for popular rural recreation than are possessed in a single property by any other city in the world. ”

“ In the climate of Great Britain turf will endure on favorable soils twice as much foot wear as it will in that of Paris or northern France or the United States; yet in the more frequented London parks it is found necessary to surround with strong iron hurdles the glades on which their landscape attraction is dependent. For this and other obvious reasons, a great extent of ground must be prepared expressly for the wear of feet and wheels. ”

“ The use of the park as part of a private property is to put the possibilities of disagreeable neighborhood at a distance from the house and the more domestic grounds, to supply a pleasant place of escape from the confinement and orderliness of the more artificial parts of the establishment, and for prolonged and vigorous out-of-door exercise. ”

“ A similar consideration will prevent monuments and statues from being placed profusely in a park, or at all in situations where they will be obtrusive. The same cautions apply to the introduction of botanic, zoological, and other gardens. Their main object is as different from that of a park as that of a billiard room from a library. Both one and the other may serve for recreation, and there is an advantage in being able to pass from one to the other; but the kind of recreation to be gained by one is not that of the other, the appropriate furniture of the one is not that of the other ”

“ The parks and open spaces of London are very numerous, and their total extent is larger perhaps than that of those belonging to any other metropolis of the first magnitude. They are very various in area, ranging from one to several hundred acres. It has been long recognized that London owes a great deal of its physical and political health to its parks and open spaces. ”

“ It is extremely difficult to provide suitably extensive and varied conveniences for the public use of a piece of ground, the elements of which are strongly picturesque with an approach to grandeur, without destroying much of its original character ”

“ A plan for a park is good, indifferent, or bad, mainly according to the ingenuity, tact, and taste with which these conflicting requirements are reconciled, and to the degree in which local circumstances are skilfully turned to account if they can be made favorable, or skilfully overcome if unfavorable for this purpose. ”

“ Neatness and the maintenance of orderly conduct among visitors in such a ground becomes also exceedingly difficult. Hence, as a rule, at least in the United States, public grounds designed with this motive soon become more forlorn than open places would be. It is much better to decorate them in such a manner as will not destroy their openness or cause inconvenience to those who have occasion to cross them. ”

“ The aggregate area of ground occupied, including the parkways, is 530 acres. Chicago is situated in a region most unfavorable to parks, and should she ever have any that are deserving the name, it will be because of a persistent wisdom of administration and a scientific skill as well as art in the constant management of those which she is setting about, such as has been nowhere else applied to a similar purpose. The grounds appropriated are flat, poor in soil, and devoid of desirable natural growth, or, except two which look upon Lake Michigan, of any natural features of interest. ”

“ In the midst of well grown woods, public accommodations, no matter how obviously artificial, nor within reasonable limits how large they may be, detract but little from the main impression, and if fairly well designed supply a grateful relief to what might otherwise be too prolonged a mass and too nearly a monotone of color. ”