I. LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT OR LANDSCAPE 

 GARDENER? 



There is at the present time much apparent misunder- 

 standing of the terms Landscape Architecture and Landscape 

 Gardening. It is not unusual to hear it stated that "this 

 calling a man a landscape architect instead of a landscape 

 gardener" is merely a fad "filling one's mind with images of 

 quarries, stone cutters, creaking derricks, tapping trowels, 

 and the like, instead of with pictures of free hand dealings 

 with sunshine and shadow, trees, flowering shrubs and leaping 

 fountains." One well known writer has even gone so far as 

 to state that "the men most deeply engaged in the art have 

 not decided what to call it," and that it is suspicioned "that 

 the present fashion among the professional brethren of calling 

 themselves landscape architects is promoted by two acciden- 

 tal causes : first, the feeling that architecture sounds bigger 

 than gardening and can demand a better fee, and second, 

 the fact that the architectural style of landscape work is the 

 present vogue among wealthy clients." 



I am going to ask you to look at this a little more carefully 

 with me and see what is true in this discussion. In the first 

 place, the term is not a "recent fad." Frederick Law Olm- 

 sted, the elder, called himself a landscape architect away back 

 in 1856, when he first entered upon the work of developing 

 Central Park in New York City, and the fact that he did so, 

 and continued to so designate himself during the whole of his 

 career has had much to do with the general adoption of the 

 term. But the fact that one man, even an eminent one, 

 adopted this title is perhaps not entirely sufficient, although 

 those of us who are familiar with Mr. Olmsted's work and 

 with his wonderful genius and mastery of the subject in all 

 of its details may well feel assured that he did not adopt the 

 title without most careful thought. Unfortunately he did 

 not in his writings, so far as I am aware, really explain his 

 reasons. He was so immersed in the great battle then going 

 on, for public parks for large cities, in showing their value 

 and necessity and in laying down the principles and executing 

 the work of these great undertakings that he apparently had 

 little time to explain fully why he assumed the title. We 



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