Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing America

In the below Olmsted Legacy film you will learn about Frederick Law Olmsted and the landscape architect firm responsible for the Rahway River Parkway, hired by Union County Park Commission.

It is the biography of a man who changed our relationship with public open space. He did not invent the parkland but he did invent the Parkway, the first integrated park system (our own Union County Park System) and the profession of Landscape Architect.

This film explores the enormous contributions of Olmsted to the American landscape, as well as his marked failures and loss. He was co-designer of Central Park, head of the first Yosemite commission, leader of the campaign to protect Niagara Falls, designer of the U.S. Capitol Grounds, site planner for the Great White City of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, planner of Boston’s "Emerald Necklance" of green space and of park systems in many other cities.

Olmsted’s pioneering design of the public parks and parkway systems in Buffalo, N.Y., is the oldest coordinated system in America and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Olmsted believed a park was both a work of art and a necessity for urban life. Olmsted’s efforts to preserve nature created an “environmental ethic” decades before the environmental movement became a force in American politics. With gorgeous cinematography, and compelling commentary this film presents the biography of a man whose parks and preservation are an essential part of American life.