Title: The best planned city in the world : Olmsted, Vaux, and the Buffalo park system /
Authors: Kowsky, Francis R., 1943-; Library of American Landscape History.
Year: 2013
Subjects: Olmsted, Frederick Law,; Vaux, Calvert,; Parks New York (State) Buffalo History; Parks New York (State) Buffalo Design and construction History; City planning New York (State) Buffalo History; Landscape design New York (State) Buffalo History
Abstract: "Beginning in 1868, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux created a series of parks and parkways for Buffalo, New York, that drew national and international attention. The improvements carefully augmented the city’s original plan with urban design features inspired by Second Empire Paris, including the first system of “parkways” to grace an American city. Displaying the plan at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Olmsted declared Buffalo “the best planned city, as to streets, public places, and grounds, in the United States, if not in the world.” Olmsted and Vaux dissolved their historic partnership in 1872, but Olmsted continued his association with the Queen City of the Lakes, designing additional parks and laying out important sites within the growing metropolis. When Niagara Falls was threatened by industrial development, he led a campaign to protect the site and in 1885 succeeded in persuading New York to create the Niagara Reservation, the present Niagara Falls State Park. Two years later, Olmsted and Vaux teamed up again, this time to create a plan for the area around the Falls, a project the two grand masters regarded as “the most difficult problem in landscape architecture to do justice to.” In this book Francis R. Kowsky illuminates this remarkable constellation of projects. Utilizing original plans, drawings, photographs, and copious numbers of reports and letters, he brings new perspective to this vast undertaking, analyzing it as a cohesive expression of the visionary landscape and planning principles that Olmsted and Vaux pioneered"--
Contents: Preface / Ethan Carr -- Introduction: Olmsted and Vaux and the progress of the American park movement -- The creation of the park system -- The making of the park -- The front and prospect place -- The parade -- Parkways, circles, and squares -- Parkside, Buffalo State Hospital, and smaller parks -- The emancipation of Niagara -- South Park, Cazenovia Park, and Riverside Park -- Epilogue.