LALH Preservation Case Studies

LALH books and exhibitions offer insight into North America’s historic landscapes and encourage preservation of them.

Many North American landscapes that were once important to people and communities have suffered from a lack of good management. Shabby parks, plazas, and cemeteries are typical examples of cultural landscapes that no longer provide meaning or pleasurable and satisfying day-to-day experiences.

By studying the origins of these landscape designs and how they evolved through history, we gain perspective on how we have engaged and shaped the land around us. These explorations guide us as we seek to become better land stewards for the future. Understanding cultural landscapes—who designed them, how they changed, and why—often leads to better management of them.

One excellent example of landscape preservation can be found in Central Park in New York City. Over the course of the twentieth century, many areas of the park suffered a severe decline. The park became unkempt and unsafe. Trees and shrubs that were important to the original design (by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux) died and were not replaced. Roads and paths deteriorated. Buildings fell into disrepair.

Beginning in the 1980s, however, original documents, such as period photographs and plans, provided the basis for new research that in turn provided the impetus and guidance for rehabilitating many sections of the park. A public-private partnership between the city of New York and the Central Park Conservancy was formed to pay the costs associated with this work. This partnership still thrives and new preservation projects throughout the park continue. Today, Central Park once again functions as the vital, urban oasis its designers envisioned it to be.

The recovery of Central Park is a model of scholarship and preservation working in collaboration. There are many such success stories across North America. Information about American designers such as Olmsted and Vaux provides vital guidance for these projects. (To learn more about Olmsted’s ideas concerning social reform and landscape architecture, read about him in Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England. You can read brief biographies of both Vaux and Olmsted in Pioneers of American Landscape Design.)

Landscape preservation depends on information!

The Nichols Arboretum (2001)

Camden’s Harborside Parks (2003)

Belle Isle (2003)

Riverview Park (2003)

Protecting Passive Scenery in Olmsted’s New York Parks (2004)

Skyline Parkway (2004)

Reynolda (2004)

Eudora Welty’s Garden (2004)

Tower Grove Park (2005)

Garden Club Rescues a Steele (and Shipman) Garden (2005)

Missouri Botanical Garden (2005)