Landscape Architecture - History of Landscape Architecture

History of Landscape Architecture

For the period before 1800, the history of landscape gardening (later called landscape architecture) is largely that of master planning and garden design for manor houses, palaces and royal properties, religious complexes, and centers of government. An example is the extensive work by André Le Nôtre at Vaux-le-Vicomte and for King Louis XIV of France at the Palace of Versailles. The first person to write of "making" a landscape was Joseph Addison in 1712. The term "landscape architecture" was invented by Gilbert Laing Meason in 1828 and was first used as a professional title by Frederick Law Olmsted in 1863. During the latter 19th century, the term "landscape architect" became used by professional people who designed landscapes. This use of "landscape architect" became established after Frederick Law Olmsted and Beatrix Farrand with others founded the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in 1899, and with the 1949 founding of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA).

Through the 19th century, urban planning became a more important need. The combination of the tradition of landscape gardening and emerging city planning that gave Landscape Architecture its unique focus to serve these needs. In the second half of the century, Frederick Law Olmsted completed a series of parks which continue to have a huge influence on the practices of Landscape Architecture today. Among these were Central Park in New York City, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York and Boston's Emerald Necklace park system. Jens Jensen designed sophisticated and naturalistic urban and regional parks for Chicago, Illinois, and private estates for the Ford family including Fair Lane and Gaukler Point. One of the original ten founding members of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), and the only woman, was Beatrix Farrand. She was design consultant for over a dozen universities including: Princeton in Princeton, New Jersey; Yale in New Haven, Connecticut; and the Arnold Arboretum for Harvard in Boston, Massachusetts. Her numerous private estate projects include the landmark Dumbarton Oaks in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

Landscape architecture continues to develop as a design discipline, and to respond to the various movements in architecture and design throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Thomas Church was a mid-century landscape architect significant in the profession. His book, Gardens Are For People, and numerous campus master planning and residential design projects influenced environmental design in California, and so the country. Roberto Burle Marx in Brazil combined the International style and native Brazilian plants and culture for a new aesthetic. Innovation continues today solving challenging problems with contemporary design solutions for master planning, landscapes, and gardens. Three examples of current practice are Martha Schwartz based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and London,the Dutch design group (West 8) based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and the Belgian architects Wirtz nv based in Schoten, Belgium with the known landscape architect Jacques Wirtz.

Ian McHarg is considered an important influence on the modern Landscape Architecture profession and land planning in particular. With his book Design with Nature, he popularized a system of analyzing the layers of a site in order to compile a complete understanding of the qualitative attributes of a place. This system became the foundation of today's Geographic Information Systems (GIS). McHarg would give every qualitative aspect of the site a layer, such as the history, hydrology, topography, vegetation, etc. GIS software is ubiquitously used in the landscape architecture profession today to analyze materials in and on the Earth's surface and is similarly used by Urban Planners, Geographers, Forestry and Natural Resources professionals, etc. Other internationally recognized practitioners include Alain de Rogaine in Paris, Yuishi Kogazawa in Kyoto and Camille Kelly in Sydney.