John Charles Olmsted

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John Charles Olmsted (1852-1920), the nephew and adopted son of Frederick Law Olmsted, was an American landscape architect and a member of Olmsted Brothers, a landscape design firm in Brookline, Massachusetts. The firm is famous for designing many public places, including Central Park. John Olmsted's body of work from over 40 years as a landscape architect has left its mark on the American urban landscape.

John Olmsted continued the park planning begun by his father. He carried his design philosophy of integrated park systems into new cities such as Portland, Maine, Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Spokane, Dayton, and Charleston. In these cities he pioneered his comprehensive planning philosophy of integrating civic buildings, roads, parks, and greenspaces into livable urban areas.

Olmstead also designed individual parks in New Orleans, Watertown, New York, and Chicago. His work in park design led to commissions for numerous institutions such as school campuses, civic buildings, and state capitols, as well as designs for large residential areas, including roads and schools. His work in comprehensive planning for the communities surrounding industrial plants and factories is considered especially noteworthy.

In all his work, John Olmsted retained a sensitivity to the natural beauty of the site, including its views, vistas, and greenways, and an awareness that communities and public areas must be comfortable and inviting. He favored modest, informal structures in a naturalistic setting to large, imposing structures.

His first plan for an exposition was his work for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.^{[citation needed]} He continued with the 1906 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Oregon, and the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition.

In 1899, John Olmsted was a founding member and first president of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

[edit] Selected works

1903 - The Seattle City Council hired the Olmsted Brothers to develop a comprehensive plan for Seattle's city parks and boulevards. John Olmsted was the firm's principal designer in Seattle and laid out a 20-mile-long system of interconnected parkways that linked parks and playfields, greenways, and natural lakes and waterways.

1903 - Grant Park, Atlanta, Georgia

1903 - Washington Park, Portland, Oregon

1905 - Druid Hills residential district, Atlanta

1906 - Oregon State University commissioned John Olmsted to complete a master plan for its Corvallis campus that included the construction of 23 new buildings

1908 - Bryn Mawr College hired John Olmsted update the general campus landscaping plan originally provided by his father and to include a private garden and a small theater in the round