The New Urban Landscape

Central Park

In the fast growing New York of the 19^th century, the distance between the urban and the rural environment increased rapidly.

The public competition for a park design in New York was the first for such a major landscape design. In the plans entered for the competition, there were 2 different approaches: one being a more natural landscape and the other one being a didactic landscape design.

Olmsted and Vaux wanted to create a rural landscape within the urban environment. No didactic elements (sculptures or other works of art) dominating the landscape. They created thick boundaries of trees to screen off the buildings and wanted to enhance the impression of spaciousness to refresh overcrowded urbanites.

The creation of Central Park began in the late 1850’s according to Olmsted and Vaux’s naturalistic landscape. Although they aspired a natural scenery, the park was completely manmade.

Prospect Park

Brooklyn evolved quickly from village to city, while realizing the inadequacy of public spaces. The success of Central Park inspired similar undertaking, as it did all over the nations cities.

The approved Prospect Heights site had a couple of difficulties. One of them was Flatbush Avenue which divided the park into two sections.

Egbert L. Viele couldn’t overcome these difficulties in his proposal for Prospect Park and in 1865 Olmstead and Vaux were brought in to create a new park plan. They suggested abandoning the land east of Flatbush Avenue to create a aesthetic unity for the park.

The two main purposes they defined for the park were that the scenery needed to offer the most agreeable contrast to the urban environment and that all classes of people should be able to meet on an equal basis.

The irregular boundaries of Prospect Park ensured visitors to forget about the rectangular outline of the grid, and therefore the city.
 

Bron: David SCHUYLER, The new urban Landscape: The redefinition of city form in Nineteenth-century America, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.