El Trascendentalismo se encuentra con el Positivismo

Por un lado, tenemos a Frederick Law Olmsted y su obra más emblemática, Central Park, vista un siglo después de su concepción a través del ojo de un gran fotógrafo contemporáneo, Lee Friedlander (la imagen pertenece al libro Viewing Olmsted, un homenaje a Olmsted editado por Phyllis Lambert consistente en tres reportajes de su obra llevados a cabo por otros tantos fotógrafos). Por otro lado, un apunte hecho a mano por Le Corbusier, uno de sus característicos dibujos a pluma con los que le gustaba ilustrar sus teorías de la ciudad moderna, bien en conferencias en las que dibujaba para el público estos esquemas de gran belleza según hablaba, bien ilustrando sus múltiples libros.

The Park Movement Picturesque rus in urb

In the mid-nineteenth century, the urban bourgeoisie sought to respond to challenges of city life through the creation of public urban parks in a wide-scale project that has been termed the “park movement.” The park movement involved not only the design and development of parks, but also extensive writings starting in 1840s that depicted the social benefits to be gained by building picturesque rus in urbe (“country in the city”) spaces. The writings of the park movement, dominated by the topic of New York’s Central Park but also encompassing comparisons between European and American public spaces and the broader possibilities of U.S. urban parks, included work by Andrew Jackson Downing, Frederick Law Olmsted, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and even a novel by Sylvester Judd that centered on public park design. This chapter argues that although the park was ostensibly envisioned as an egalitarian instrument of social reform, bringing together the genders and classes in an idealized intimate public sphere, ultimately the literature of the park movement most fully addressed the anxieties of bourgeois men about their authority over female-dominated domestic spaces, as well as seeking to reclaim moral order against working-class men’s domination of the city streets.

DEL FRESH POND AL MYSTIC RIVER: TOPOGRAFÍA Y HORIZONTE EN EL PAISAJISMO DE LOS OLMSTED

El artículo analiza una obra relativamente desconocida de los Olmsted Brothers, la Alewife Brook Parkway, con la intención de esclarecer determinados recursos conceptuales en su manera de proyectar. Este prolífico estudio fue fundado por los hijos del paisajista Frederick Law Olmsted y, a través de sus obras, hicieron perdurar su legado. La propuesta estudia, precisamente, el proyecto de un parkway, un concepto que combinaba infraestructura y paisajismo y que Olmsted aplicó a lo largo de su carrera. Aquí, se elabora una interpretación personal de esta obra, sustentada en el análisis de materiales originales, que pone en valor las relaciones visuales vinculadas a la topografía. Lejos de ser algo singular, dichas relaciones se explican como uno de los fundamentos del proyecto y, en general, de la obra de los Olmsted.

Frederick Law Olmsted: a arquitetura de paisagens e os parques nacionais norte-americanos

RESUMO O presente estudo se insere no campo da história ambiental, trata da arquitetura de paisagens e do seu precursor, o arquiteto paisagista Frederick Law Olmsted. A análise dos escritos de Olmsted, de figuras importantes para sua formação pessoal e profissional, e a compreensão do contexto no qual ele se destacou têm forte relação com a proteção à natureza. O objetivo deste artigo consiste em compreender o contexto em que se desenvolveu o trabalho de Olmsted e a sua relação com os primeiros parques nacionais norte-americanos. As conclusões da pesquisa destacam: i) a percepção de Olmsted de que se devia buscar uma relação saudável entre humanos e a natureza; ii) e o seu legado para a sociedade norte-americana do século XIX, especialmente no que diz respeito à questão da valorização da natureza selvagem.

Social Observers

By mid-century Liverpool’s place on the tourist circuit had become well-established. This chapter gives a broad range of social descriptions offered by travellers, including details from Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Central Park. There are snapshots of key buildings and urban scenes as well as glimpses of the means of transport.

Landscape architecture according to Olmsted: beyond purifying the air, pacifying the mind

Although the works of Frederick Law Olmsted – such as Central Park, Prospect Park, Franklin Park, Riverside – are today widely recognized and appreciated, some of them having, in fact, been the object of important restoration work, the thinking which engendered them is much more unfamiliar, notably due to its complexity. The mission of landscape architecture, as it is defined by Olmsted, is above all social: to improve the living conditions of the population, beginning with the most unfavored. It is not just a matter of providing breathing spaces, but of allowing people to experience places capable of appeasing their minds.

Los herederos de Olmsted: la American Society of Landscape Architects y la difícil definición del paisajista moderno

ResumenEn la actualidad, varios teóricos del paisaje han notado una crisis continuada en la identidad profesional de la arquitectura del paisaje. Este problema, de hecho, cuenta ya con una larga trayectoria que nos lleva hasta el punto en que Frederick Law Olmsted, uno de los creadores de Central Park, concibió la profesión. Partiendo de las intuiciones mostradas en publicaciones recientes, este artículo trata las dificultades que tuvo la American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), la primera organización oficial de paisajistas, para definir la arquitectura del paisaje como una profesión moderna. Para explorar esta idea se han consultado los documentos originales que la ASLA produjo desde el momento de su fundación hasta la mitad del siglo XX, almacenados en uno de los archivos históricos de la Biblioteca del Congreso de Estados Unidos y que, hasta el momento, no han sido publicados en su mayor parte. Una lectura crítica de estos documentos muestra los conflictos y complicaciones que tuvo la sociedad para definir un ámbito profesional y un perfil concreto de cara al público.AbstractIn current times, several landscape theorists have noticed a persistent crisis in the professional identity of landscape architecture. Actually, this problem has a long history that can be traced back to when Frederick Law Olmsted, one of the creators of New York’s Central Park, conceived the profession. Following some of the ideas that recent publications have hinted at, in this paper we look into the difficulties that the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), the first official organization of its kind, went through during the early attempts to define landscape architecture as a modern profession. To do this, we have consulted the original documents that the ASLA produced between its foundation and the middle of the 20th century. These are currently stored in the Library of Congress of the United States and some of them remain unpublished up until now. A critical reading of these records highlights the conflicts and complications in defining the field of landscape architecture and building a specific public profile.