Frederick Law Olmsted was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the United States. Olmsted was famous for co-designing many well-known urban parks with his partner Calvert Vaux. Olmsted and Vaux's first project was New York's Central Park, which led to many other urban park designs, including Prospect Park in Brooklyn and Cadwalader Park in Trenton, New Jersey. He headed the preeminent landscape architecture and planning consultancy of late 19th century United States, which was carried on and expanded by his sons, Frederick Jr. and John C., under the name Olmsted Brothers.
Olmsted in 1893; engraving after a photograph
The Olmsted–Beil House in Staten Island
Olmsted in 1857
Olmsted and Vaux in 1863 adopted "landscape architect" as a professional title and used it to describe their work for the planning of urban park systems.
A landscape architect is a person who is educated in the field of landscape architecture. The practice of landscape architecture includes: site analysis, site inventory, site planning, land planning, planting design, grading, storm water management, sustainable design, construction specification, and ensuring that all plans meet the current building codes and local and federal ordinances.
Business card for eighteenth century landscape architect Humphry Repton, by Thomas Medland
Landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux and the team they gathered to execute the Greensward Plan, their 1858 design for Central Park in Manhattan, photographed in 1862 at the park standing on the pathway atop the span of the Willowdell Arch (from the left: Andrew Haswell Green, George Waring, Vaux, Ignaz Anton Pilat, Jacob Wrey Mould, and Olmsted)
Markdale Garden at Binda near Crookwell, New South Wales, Australia, designed by Edna Walling
Drawing of plan for an entrance to Central Park in Manhattan by Richard Morris Hunt (American, 1827–1895) c. 1863
