“Frederick Law Olmsted: Plans and Views of Public Parks” (published in 2015) and “Frederick Law Olmsted: Plans and Views of Communities and Private Estates” (2020) are the most visually rich of any of the Olmsted books in the Miller Library collection. At 11”x11” and well over 400 pages each, these challenge the fortitude of any coffee table but this means that the plans, while still reduced in size, are large enough to interpret and understand easily.
Charles Beveridge was the lead editor for both of these books and has been researching and writing about the Olmsted legacy for over 50 years.
Local readers would find the later volume the most interesting with Olmsted’s plans for the city of Tacoma from 1873. His approach to cities built on hills was to abandon a rectilinear grid system, but rather have “principal streets laid on gradual grades ascending the steep hills.” His plan also included a Capitol Park in anticipation Tacoma would become the seat of government for the state.
This concept was too radical for many of the founders of the city and was never adopted. The results of their decision were shrewdly noted by English journalist and author Rudyard Kipling when he visited Tacoma in 1913. He described the city as having: “ungraded streets that ended abruptly in a fifteen-foot drop and a nest of brambles.”
Excerpted from the Summer 2022 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin