New Digital Guide Honors Pioneer of Landscape Architecture Frederick Law Olmsted

Celebrating the bicentennial of the birth of Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., known as “the father of landscape architecture”, the Cultural Landscape Foundation has created an ever-growing digital guide of Olmsted’s most notable works. The illustrated guide features more than 300 landscapes throughout North America, including Canada and 30 U.S. States, along with stories by practitioners who worked for, with, or were otherwise associated with Olmsted, Sr. and his successor firms.

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Titled “What’s Out There Olmsted“, the guide highlights the architect’s legacy through a searchable database of North American landscapes, and 100 biographical entries about the Olmsted family and the firm’s many employees, consultants, and collaborators. For more than 100 years, Olmsted, Sr. and his firms have shaped cities, parks, scenic reservations, residential neighborhoods, and governmental, cultural, and academic campuses, such as North Carolina’s great Biltmore Estate, Colorado’s Mountain Park System near Denver, the grounds of the U.S. Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., California’s Stanford University and Yosemite National Park, and Canada’s Mount Royal.

The sites in What’s Out There Olmsted range from national historic landmarks to lesser-known gardens, parks, and comprehensive plans, along with concise, 250-word site description, drop down menus with information about the site’s typology (e.g., public park, suburb, etc.), style (e.g., picturesque, Beaux- Arts/Neoclassical, etc.), designers, and related landscapes. The guide also has a media gallery with four to ten images, and where applicable, a complementary video, which can all be searched geographically by region, state, city, zip code, and up to 100 miles from a specific zip code. 

The stories of those that worked with, for, and after Olmsted to create these memorable landscapes include Warren Manning, who worked for Olmsted, Sr. for eight years on more than 1,700 projects, including estates, parks and park systems, city plans, campus plans, subdivisions, golf courses, and institutional grounds. Arthur Shurcliff, who specialized in the restoration of early American town commons, also shared his stories, along with Massachusetts native William Lyman Phillips, who collaborated with the Olmsted Brothers for decades, and Stella Obst, who spent some 40 years at the Olmsted Brothers firm working closely with Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.

What’s Out There Olmsted is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and Educational Partners Olmsted 200 and the American Society of Landscape Architects. This project is TCLF’s twentieth digital What’s Out There City and Regional Guide, (including six guides produced in partnership with the National Park Service). What’s Out There Olmsted is optimized for smartphones, and includes What’s Nearby, a GPS-enabled feature that locates all landscapes within a given distance.