American Landscape and Architectural Design, 1850-1920: a Study Collection from the Harvard Graduate School of Design

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Go directly to the collection, American Landscape and Architectural Design, 1850-1920: a Study Collection from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, in American Memory, or view a Summary of Resources related to the collection.

American Landscape and Architectural Design, 1850-1920, provides students historical materials related to the history of American design that will also assist in understanding the turn-of-the-century culture and the challenges and opportunities that were created as the nation industrialized and urban centers flourished. Many images can be used to learn about the City Beautiful Movement and the work of Frederick Law Olmsted. In addition, these materials reflect the relationship between humans and the environment in images related to westward expansion, and architecture and design.

One unique aspect of American cultural history is the history of American design. Browsing the collection's Indexes and Special Presentations provides a thorough and concrete sense of the development of architectural and landscape design in America, from trefoils and tiger rugs to national parks.

Boston Public Library, Boston, MA.	House Interior With Tiger Rug, New York, NY.	Rice Estate, Site Plan, Newport, RI.	Stotesbury Estate, Formal Garden, Chestnut Hill, PA.
Yosemite Valley from Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park, CA.

The Names Index can be used to learn about some of the landscape designers and architects who shaped the history of American design. Browse this index to find their names and examples of their work. Do the examples reflect individual styles? Through outside research, find out about these architects' backgrounds and lifestyles. Which designers and architests were most prolific? Most influential? Return to the collection and look for evidence of the influences these architects had on cultural values and preferences.

One of the most well-known American architects is Frank Lloyd Wright. Search on Frank Lloyd Wright to find images of several of the houses and parks he designed. Trace the influence of his style on other architects and designers as well as on the physical landscape.

Coonley House, Exterior , Riverside, IL , 1908.

Heurtley House, Exterior, Oak Park, IL, 1901.

Taliesin I, Exterior, Spring Green, WI, 1911; redone, 1925.

• What features recur in Wright's designs? Determine if these features influenced others by browsing items from the Subject Index and looking for those features in other architects' works.
• What is the nature of the relationship of Wright's buildings with the environment? How does his style compare with those of other architects?

Architecture, in general, reflects the values of the architect, the financial backer, and the society-at-large at the time of its creation. One can learn of the cultural values in America at the turn of the century by observing the styles of the buildings and sites in this collection.

Boston Public Library, Murals, Copley Square, Boston, MA, 1887-98.	Chanler House, Interior, Tuxedo Park, NY, 1915.		Search on architectural terms such as interiors, doors, and gardens to retrieve images of these items. Using these images, answer the questions below to gain an understanding of turn-of-the-century values. Are sites ornately decorated? Or are the designs simple? What does this decorative stiyle suggest about American values? The economy?
	Is there a revival of an earlier time period's design style? Examine the murals from the Boston Public Library (left). How are these people dressed? What are they doing? When and where would they have lived? Why might Americans in the late nineteenth century have emulated this time period? Why would this painting appear in a public library?

• Are the images in the collection representative of the average American's living situation? If not, how did other people live? From these various living conditions, what do we learn about American cultural norms? Social and economic systems? For more details on the history of the collection read the online summary About the Collection.

Rapid urbanization, an outgrowth of rapid industrialization, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, created new challenges and opportunities in American life. Using this collection to examine landscape and architectural features, one can study the variety of ways that urban designers responded to the development of visually apparent class distinctions in American society, to overcrowding, and to shrinking amounts of available land in urban areas. In determining architects' solutions, note the opportunities that the industrial age offered in the form of raw materials, tools, labor, money, and innovation.

View of Williamsburg Before Demolition, New York, NY.

Broadway, View Down Street, New York, NY.	Residential streets, Sidewalks And Houses.		Search on the terms residential, street, and city, to find various built landscapes and compare residential and industrial or commercial areas. How did architects create enough built space for the population? What raw materials, tools, and innovations made these built environments possible? For example, how are the following resources used: steel, electricity, elevators, cars, mass transit, and mass production?
What transportation options are made available to people? Note the streets, sidewalks, and rail lines. What visual clues help determine if these are impoverished or wealthy areas? What evidence, if any, is there that an urban planner may have been involved in designing this built landscape?

Searching on the terms house and slum will retrieve images useful in understanding how increasing differences in class and income in American society reflected an increased disparity between the rich and the poor. Would the people who lived in these areas ever have interacted? Has this situation changed today?

House of Mrs. H. H. Porter, Exterior, Cedarhurst, Long Island, NY.

Slums, Probably In Some American City.

5. Frederick Law Olmsted and the City Beautiful Movement

The increased disparity and tensions between classes, the rampant materialism, crime, and poverty of the turn-of-the-century metropolis caught the attention of social reformers. One group of reformers, consisting mainly of white, upper-middle class men, created what was called the City Beautiful Movement. Championed by landscape architect and city designer, Frederick Law Olmsted, the City Beautiful Movement sought to beautify the city so that it might help and inspire civic and moral virtue in its people, particularly the poor.

This collection contains over five hundred images of Olmsted's projects, which reflect the variety of his work. In addition to Central Park in New York City, Olmsted created Boston's network of parks, the Emerald Necklace, and countless other city parks. He designed entire communities such as Riverside, a suburb of Chicago, college campuses, state capitols, private estates, and the grounds for the 1893 World's Fair. He also planned designs for the conservation of Yosemite and Niagara Falls.

Franklin Park, Hagborne Hill, Emerald Necklace, Boston, MA.

Mt. Vernon Square, Charles St., Baltimore, MD.

Biltmore Estate, View Of House With Pool, Asheville, NC.

World's Columbian Exposition 1893, Chicago, IL.

In his 1870 essay, "Public Parks and the Enlargement of Towns," Olmsted wrote:

We want a ground to which people may easily go after their day's work is done, and where they may stroll for an hour, seeing, hearing, and feeling nothing of the bustle and jar of the streets . . . We want the greatest possible contrast with the restraining and confining conditions of the town, which compel us to walk circumspectly, watchfully, jealously, which compel us to look closely upon others without sympathy.

Olmsted compared the park to a "tea-table with neighbors and wives and mothers and children, and all things clean and wholesome, softening and refining." He provided a contrasting description of street culture:

Consider how often you see young men in knots of perhaps half a dozen in lounging attitudes rudely obstructing the sidewalks, chiefly led in their little conversation by the suggestions given to their minds by what or whom they see passing in the street, men, women, or children, whom they do not know, and for whom they have no respect or sympathy. There is nothing among them or about them which is adopted to bring into play a spark of admiration, of delicacy, manliness, or tenderness.

Examine some of the images of Olmsted's work as well as images of other parks and consider the following questions:

• Do the images of Olmsted's parks show them to be places of refuge from city streets and street culture?
• How do you feel about Olmsted's view of street life?
• How does Olmsted's upper-middle class background impact your understanding of his views and goals?
• The City Beautiful Movement emerged from a period of violent class strife and labor unrest expressed in Chicago's Haymarket Riot of 1886 and the Homestead and Pullman strikes of 1892 and 1894. How does this information impact your understanding of the movement and the motives of its practitioners?
• How do Olmsted's other works, such as private estates, relate to his concept of refinement?
• How would you describe Olmsted's interpretation of refinement? Is it dainty or grand, simple or elaborate, extravagant or tempered, formal or quaint? Explain using examples.
• What are other designers' parks like? What goals and values do they reflect?
• What relationship between humans and the environment is the City Beautiful Movement based upon? Do you find this idea realistic? Do you see evidence of this idea in your own life, in the places you go and the way people behave?
• What were other city reform movements around the turn of the century like?

This collection offers a unique opportunity to explore the complex relationship between humans and the environment in the early modern era of United States history. Browse the Subject Index for a sense of the variety of land uses in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Sample items from subject headings such as arboretums, Chinese gardens, factories, forest reserves, open spaces, playgrounds, skyscrapers, and streets and consider the following questions.

What do these images reveal about Americans' relationships with, and attitudes toward the environment? What evidence is there of an attitude toward the environment as a supply of natural resources? What do the photographs suggest about people's awareness of their own impact on the environment?	Ford Plant Steel Factory, River Rouge, MI.	Chinese Garden, Canandaigua, NY.
Do the images reflect a belief that the environment is something to be protected or managed by humans? Is there evidence of reckless disregard for the environment? What do the images suggest about people's opinions about the beauty of nature?

You can consider these materials and the attitudes they reflect within a broader historical context through the collection, Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920 and its Special Presentation of a timeline. What does the timeline tell you about the effects of economics and politics upon land use? For example, how did these factors effect the creation of national parks? Search on the term national park in American Landscape and Architectural Design, 1850-1920 to retrieve representations of federal parkland in the United States.

What is the nature of the relationship between people and the environment, expressed in the creation of national parks? How does this relationship compare to your own experiences in national parks? What values and economic and political conditions do the existence and uses of national parks reflect? Do the parks attempt to preserve or conserve national landscapes? Which communities do national parks serve? Is access equally available to all Americans?

Glacier National Park, MT.

The American Memory collection Mapping the National Parks can be used in further research of national parks.

This collection offers the opportunity to examine Americans' movement west as both a search for more natural resources and a story of ecological and environmental change. Browse the State Index to see images of western states. Included are many vivid images of national parks and landscapes. Compare these images of western landscapes with those of eastern landscapes. What natural resources and opportunities are available? What are the environmental features of the landscapes and the state of the built environments of each region?

San Gabriel Valley, San Gabriel, CA.

Edison Electric Plant, Quincy, MA, 1921.

What resources were factories such as this dependent upon for operation? Were these resources readily available? Who controlled the availability of these resources? Were they affordable to those who needed them? Why might these factors have led to the exploitation of western resources?

Some images illustrate the changes wrought upon the physical landscape by westward expansion. For example, search on San Francisco to see images of this city whose population exploded after the discovery of gold in California in 1848.

What evidence is there of civilization's impact on the natural environment? Draw a picture of how you think this area would have looked before the effects of civilization. How are people using this area? For residential usage? Industrial usage? Is there evidence of attempts to conserve and preserve the landscape? What hindrances and opportunities does the landscape present for industrial development?

Golden Gate Heights, Aerial View, San Francisco, CA.