Academic literature on the topic 'Olmsted Brothers (Firm)'

Abstract The landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and his sons John Charles and Frederick Jr. changed the prevailing understanding of the view from the suburban home. Historically, such vistas reflected a sense of isolation in nature, an experience that the early suburban communities of the nineteenth century attempted to replicate. In contrast, the elder Olmsted, in his first suburban design, posited the need for the neighborhood to be visible and distinguishable from the houses; it would form the foreground of views into more distant landscapes. This article examines the lineage of this vista and how Frederick Law Olmsted’s sons, through their firm Olmsted Brothers, later came to replicate it systematically in their suburban projects. A comparison with possible antecedents of this particular view shows that the Olmsteds not only made it a fundamental design factor but also endowed it with ethical and aesthetic qualities.

During the last weeks of his practice, Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., wrote that the future of his firm depended on developing an appropriate landscape style for the arid West. Christine Edstrom O'Hara tells how his sons' firm, Olmsted Brothers, set out to reach that goal in their unbuilt proposal for the 1915 San Diego Panama-California Exposition, in what is now Balboa Park. The Panama-California Exposition, San Diego, 1915: The Olmsted Brothers' Ecological Park Typology is the story of their innovative embrace of regionalist aesthetics and a respect for local ecology, topography, and weather. The ideals of their design, however, were not taken up by their clients. The Olmsted firm was fired, and the fairgrounds that welcomed visitors to San Diego in 1915 had architecture that was more appropriate to large cities and a landscape better suited to a wet climate.

This article illuminates Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.’s use of racially restrictive covenants in his firm’s residential subdivisions. Given his prominence in planning for urban development during the first three decades of the twentieth century, examining Olmsted Jr.’s legacy to the role of planning in perpetuating racial segregation can provide an important missing piece of planning history. This study utilizes a particularly rich collection of restrictive covenants (circa 1900–1930) from the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site to document the scope, variety, location, timing, and language of racial restrictions applied in numerous Olmsted Brothers firm projects across America. In doing so, it considers the relationship between developers, designers, and homeowners in contributing to the segregation of American residential subdivisions still prevalent today. This research demonstrates the commitment of the Olmsted firm to advancing residential segregation in newly created communities throughout the nation during the first half of the twentieth century.