wTB lights presenting the world premiere a frederick law olmsted designing
America
this new one-hour documentary produced by Lawrence hot and I and Gary a
Florentine films
hot productions NW and will DTB chronicles the career and lasting
influence at America's premier landscape architect
the design New York Central Park boston's Emerald Necklace
and many town comment and campuses right here in the Pioneer Valley as balto
and larry is joining me today thank you so much and that's ok fighting to hear
that this guy
who is world-renowned praises I'm
did suffer here the Pioneer Valley it's not a surprise that he did stuff here
because he's actually from here he was born in Hartford
and spent his childhood coming up the river has filed the suit a come-on
and the silent ride so he would understand that natural scenery
and when he was already an established landscape architect
he was hired to reduce Smith College campus the Mount Holyoke campus the
cameras campus
universe a Massachusetts to Springfield hired him to do far spark
his firm and then his sons did most the parks in Holyoke and then there are
parks around here like look park in North Hampton that look like an onset
Park
even though they're not because on sober so influential the people just want to
copy everything he did
and the favorite Asian sincerest form of flattery so it looks like people are
taking after
so you could do a documentary firsts for years what drew you to onset
of that is quite a character I kept stumbling over him my first film was
about the Boston water supply in
the Quabbin Reservoir night found out that on stat had designed the Emerald
Necklace
in in Boston and actually redesigned the back bay and and it was when the first
major environmental projects in the world
and I thought this is the character a I'd like to explore but
other films got in the way and then a few years ago a friend approach me
inside you consider on status along
yes because a ring for thirty years I was working with the popular PBS station
and I knew that almost at had designed the Buffalo
park system and I said have you considered on sadness oh yeah we've been
thinking about him for thirty years
to let's get together and do this film and I I didn't know on stage background
I didn't know owns that was almost and ne'er do well in his youth
he just kept screwing up he was a scientific wake of a scientific former
he wanna do this kinda progressive farming but he never made a dime from it
and then he went to europe you want to observe parks informing their
and then he came home any in he went out to to China on a boat nearly died of
scurvy
then he helped found the nation magazine it was a writer but every magazine
founded
went belly-up stuff he was always out of money and it seems
that him being John to Central Park is has its own little unique twist to it
too he wasn't even
he was just an accident day he because the social connections he knew the
transcendentalists embers
Emerson and Thoreau any and he knew the right crowd New York
and somebody approach missile you have a background in drainage you
and performs can perhaps you'd like a job superintendent clearing the land for
Central Park
and yet even really know anything about central park but needed the job
and who is father was tied to giving him money so we took this job
at the same time the Central Park commissioners didn't like the plan that
they had
and they decided to do a competition and there was a
architect uncovered fox in the city who'd heard of homestead
as hell I need somebody who known understands knows the lay of the land
you know the land I know how to draw let's admit
a plan 333 plans and they want
and that's all to God about a central park so
what with set onset Park apart from any other park out there
you know when you see an on state park you know it and I'm so Park its home
stadium
what makes it home said Park homes steady in I've been thinking about this
for a while
when you go into an office apartment like Center Parcs a great example
has ten different areas just got the ramble on and
and its and it's got the Sheep Meadow and Scott the ravine
and wherever you go is a surprise
you come out of arson you come upon a a meadow or you walk down a lil
%uh a winding lane you don't know where it's gonna gonna gonna go
and idk opens up into something that much bigger than you thought
or you walk into an area and slots more than you thought
and you see that repeat in all homestead parks so around here
if you're walking down a path in a park and it curves
keeps curving it kinda serpentine and goes into a cop's
and then comes out to a meadow thats on steady in but the real thing that makes
and homestead Park it s based on the natural design
the area the lay of the land yet he manipulates the land
he changes it is not afraid to make it the see the scene he wants the perfect
frame he wants
but still he never changes are so not much that's not recognizable and it
seems that that was instructed to piss conservation wildlife preservation
well he actually help start the preservation within the United States
are what he helps gets back falls turned to a state park
campaigns for years and years and then designs guess the commission by the way
had to design the Niagara Falls resident reservation
but he's also out in Yosemite an 18-6 season heads a commission
and he's one of the first people to say this land use to be set aside
so in a way he's credited with the beginning at the conservation and
preservation movement
was something that kinda stuck out to you or intrigued you are submitting
surprised you the most when you're doing this documentary on
ons that was not the happiest person and it's surprising how productive he what
he had these depressions way
one point he was in a darkened room for three months arm
he didn't do well with women and what his brother
died he married his brother's widow almost right away and adopted
her kid had a couple kids have his own but life was not easy for Armstead
at the same time he he must have been a great salesperson
pretty kept getting commissions but he also could did not deal with a thirty
very well he got fired
many times from Central Park and they brought him back at 1:20 left
and he went I think and founded the Sanitary Commission during the Civil War
he couldn't stand his boss is any left and went out west for a while
so how did somebody that such a troubled mind had so much trouble with authority
to in his lifetime 3 thousand projects
and you didn't even call himself a landscape architect Intel
the 1860 when he was 42 years old
he had left a lasting legacy his son
founds The act landscape architects court Harvard
and its firm goes on up until 1979 all told there are 6,000 projects done
biome said and its progeny what do you think his legacy is what I see
left behind well in Massachusetts for example he went out to phnom K which is
on stockbridge which was time by Fletcher steel
here's the trustees of reservations site that was done in the style homes to
looking at the natural and around it
all over the country there areas for where landscape architects adopted on
stat style
so if you're in Louisville Buffalo Chicago we're almost at work
they then took those parks and went beyond them so that say he designed
three parks or six part1 City the might now be eighteen or twenty parks that
look like
on state parks his influence is tremendous
we now understand and appreciate the way a park should look
because it was all set did very interesting can't wait for the premiere
at larry had thank you
thank you