The Long View
A little while ago I was reading The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. Frederick Law Olmstead is a major player in the book since he was the landscape architect for The World’s Fair (the White City) in Chicago in 1893, and he was under tremendous pressure to make the landscape of the fair “beautiful.” Quickly.
The following quote sums up Olmstead’s approach to landscape architecture (he pretty much invented that term).
I have all my life been considering distant effects and always sacrificing immediate success and applause to that of the future. In laying out Central Park [1858] we determined to think of no result to be realized in less than 40 years.
Fredrick Law Olmstead
Mindful landscape architects have been following Olmstead’s lead ever since. This attitude is needed now more than ever as we try to protect coastal areas from rising sea levels.
Here’s a little video I shot with my phone in Literary Walk in Central Park, one of Olmstead’s masterpieces, last year. Enjoy.