Designing America: Architects of an American Landscape

by Hugh Howard

As residents of the Esplanade, and thus beneficiaries of Moshe Safdie’s remarkable handiwork, some of us now pay more attention to the built environment we live in.  At a recent meeting of one of our resident book clubs, this appreciation was extended to two other architects who did so much to enhance the beauty of our local surroundings: Henry Hobson Richardson and Frederick Law Olmsted.

The stimulus for this reflection was the club’s reading Hugh Howard’s dual biography of Richardson and Olmsted, Architects of an American Landscape (2022).  Howard offers an engaging account of the careers of these two pioneers in design, as they re-imagined America’s public and private spaces.  Although almost a generation apart, the two men met in New York where they became friends and, eventually, collaborators.  And both moved to Brookline, Mass., where they were neighbors for many years.

Richardson is most well-known as the architect of Trinity Church in Copley Square (1877), which remains one of the most beautiful buildings in the United States – that, at least, is the view of most Bostonians.  But Richardson also made his mark in an increasingly democratic society by designing numerous public libraries, city halls, and small-scale commuter rail depots, such as the Old Colony Railroad station in North Easton, Mass, which are permanent contributions to the enhancement of our public landscape.  Richardson regarded the Allegheny County Courthouse and accompanying municipal buildings in Pittsburgh, PA, as his most impressive achievement.  Other observers are fond of the Richardson-inspired, red-tiled stucco buildings that make up the Stanford University campus.

Frederick Olmsted’s major work was also motivated by democratic commitments, but in his case the focus was mainly on public parks.  Before landscape architecture took shape as a profession, Olmsted worked out its basic principles.  His thought, throughout, was on meeting the needs of a growing urban population for space and greenery.  While the material he used for construction came from nature, Olmsted’s aim was moral and spiritual.  As he said about Central Park, “The Park is intended to furnish healthful recreation for the poor and the rich, the young and the old, the vicious and the virtuous” – that encompasses nearly everyone, doesn’t it?  In terms of scale, Prospect Park in Brooklyn and Central Park in Manhattan (which opened to the public in 1858) stand alongside the landscaping at Niagara Falls and Yosemite Park as Olmsted’s finest achievements.  But for Boston residents what comes to mind is his design of the Arnold Aboretum (1872) and the Emerald Necklace, which stretches for more than seven miles from the Boston Common through the Back Bay Fens to Franklin Park.

Today Olmsted is more remembered than Richardson, but readers of Howard’s book will learn that Richardson’s influence was wide-ranging and profound, especially as it is reflected in the work of Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright.  Although Wright did not share Richardson’s penchant for massive effect and Romanesque style, he adopted (and adapted) distinctive Richardsonian features, including open interior spaces (instead of boxy, rectangular rooms), exposed structural features of wood and stone (providing evidence of the artisan’s handiwork), and sheltering roofs that emphasize a horizontal look.

Under Olmsted’s and Richardson’s influence, we now have come to expect that the line of demarcation between a building and its environment will be fluid and evanescent.  That’s a common experience at the Esplanade.

Ken Winston