"Of all American artists, Frederick Law Olmsted, who gave the design for the laying out of the grounds of the World's fair, stands first in the production of great works which answer the needs and give expression to the life of our immense and miscellaneous democracy." -Charles Eliot Norton (1893)[1]
When I first decided to write about Frederick Law Olmsted as my Designer of the Month for August, I was accused of wanting to do so just to have an excuse to talk about the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Because, you see, I have a thing for these Universal Expositions, or, as they're commonly known, World's Fairs, and the Chicago one is particularly interesting. So, while getting to discuss this momentous event was, admittedly, part of Olmsted's appeal, it's only part of the picture - today's part.
Map of the Buildings and Grounds of the World's Columbian Exposition at Jackson Park and Midway Plaisance, issued by the Department of Surveys and Grades, from the Art Institute of Chicago Archival Image Collection.The World's Columbian Exposition was held to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the New World, with Chicago beating out St. Louis, Washington, D.C. and New York for the honor of hosting America's first World's Fair.[2] The Exposition Universelle of 1889 in Paris had centered around the Eiffel Tower, which served as the entrance to the Fair, so of course, the Americans wanted their Fair to be even more spectacular, hoping to "out Eiffel Eiffel".[3] By the time the Columbian Expo came around, Olmsted was the head of a national consulting business called F.L. Olmsted & Co., with Henry Codman, one of his proteges, as a partner.[4] Olmsted had already gained a reputation as an innovative, much in demand, landscape architect. So when a location for the Fair was being chosen, despite many other projects that he was already working on, Olmsted was brought in as an advisor and then hired to design the grounds.[5] Basically, Olmsted saw the Fair as opportunity to finally dispel the perception that landscape architecture was nothing more than large-scale gardening, having it instead be recognized as a distinct branch of the fine arts.[6] As Erik Larson explains in his extremely enjoyable and highly readable book, Devil in the White City, about the Chicago World's Fair and a series of murders that took place at the time:
Olmsted valued plants, trees, and flowers not for their individual attributes but rather as colors and shapes on a palette. Formal beds offended him. Roses were not roses but 'flecks of white or red modifying masses of green.' It irked him that few people seemed to understand the effects he worked so long and hard to create. 'I design with a view to passage of quietly composed, soft, subdued pensive character, shape the ground, screen out discordant elements and get suitable vegetation growing.' Too often, however, he would 'come back in a year an find destruction: why? "My wife is so fond of roses."[7]It was the lure of the national exposure that the Fair would offer and the possibility of it leading to the types of work that Olmsted dreamed of, were what convinced him to take the job.
The above image is one of my favorite Expo pictures. Taken from a May 1, 1893 article in the Chicago Tribune about the fair, as the caption states: "For 179 days the World's Columbian Exposition created the illusion of a beautiful, orderly White City. The gleam of the fair buildings was due to a plasterlike [sic] coating called staff. This view is from the roof of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts building."[8] C. D. Arnold, who was the official photographer of the Fair, captured some amazing shots. While many of the images ended up in private collections, there are portfolios on view at the Art Institute of Chicago Archival Images Collection (you can see many of the images online), the Detroit Institute of the Arts, Columbia University's Avery Library in New York, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Library in New York, the Library of Congress in Washington, and the American Art Portrait Gallery in Washington (there may be others but these are just the ones I know about). Yes, you can see many of these images on the computer, but if you've never seen platinum prints in person before, it's an experience that I highly recommend. But back to the Fair.
The concept for the design of the grounds originated with Olmsted and Codman; the major natural landscape feature would be water.[9] Not only was the site of the Expo on the shore of Lake Michigan, but it was also designed to feature a system of basins, canals and a lagoon, with the buildings around the lagoon to be varied while the ones around the basin in more of an architecturally formal (read, Roman) style.[10] Really though, while Olmsted was right about the Fair being the commission that would make his career, it also almost did him in completely. Olmsted and Codman couldn't rely on local nurseries for the estimated "one hundred small willows; seventy-five large railway platform carloads of collected herbaceous aquatic plants, taken from the wild; one hundred and forty thousand other aquatic plants, largely native and Japanese irises, and two hundred and eighty-five thousand ferns and other perennial herbaceous plants," with most of it collected from Illinois and Wisconsin.[11] Now how daunting is that? Combined with the fact that Olmsted had only about two and a half years to transform more than 600 baren acres and that, unlike his preferred method of creating a landscape that wouldn't be fully realized for years or even decades after the project's completion, the Expo would have to rely entirely on fully-mature plants, Olmsted spent most of the project frustrated and in ill health.[12]
But complete it he did. Unfortunately, Codman never lived to see the final product; he died due to complications from an appendectomy on January 14, 1893, 4 months before the Fair opened.[13] The Chicago World's Fair did, however, help bring recognition to the field of landscape architecture. It also not only managed to "out-Eiffel Eiffel," with the first ever Ferris Wheel, but it also helped change the look and shape of America in so many different ways.[14] The White City, as it became known because of the great towering buildings of white plaster that coated the monumental Roman-style buildings, along with the first large-scale illumination of an area by electric alternating current lights, was an unprecedented success.[15]
The concept for the design of the grounds originated with Olmsted and Codman; the major natural landscape feature would be water.[9] Not only was the site of the Expo on the shore of Lake Michigan, but it was also designed to feature a system of basins, canals and a lagoon, with the buildings around the lagoon to be varied while the ones around the basin in more of an architecturally formal (read, Roman) style.[10] Really though, while Olmsted was right about the Fair being the commission that would make his career, it also almost did him in completely. Olmsted and Codman couldn't rely on local nurseries for the estimated "one hundred small willows; seventy-five large railway platform carloads of collected herbaceous aquatic plants, taken from the wild; one hundred and forty thousand other aquatic plants, largely native and Japanese irises, and two hundred and eighty-five thousand ferns and other perennial herbaceous plants," with most of it collected from Illinois and Wisconsin.[11] Now how daunting is that? Combined with the fact that Olmsted had only about two and a half years to transform more than 600 baren acres and that, unlike his preferred method of creating a landscape that wouldn't be fully realized for years or even decades after the project's completion, the Expo would have to rely entirely on fully-mature plants, Olmsted spent most of the project frustrated and in ill health.[12]
But complete it he did. Unfortunately, Codman never lived to see the final product; he died due to complications from an appendectomy on January 14, 1893, 4 months before the Fair opened.[13] The Chicago World's Fair did, however, help bring recognition to the field of landscape architecture. It also not only managed to "out-Eiffel Eiffel," with the first ever Ferris Wheel, but it also helped change the look and shape of America in so many different ways.[14] The White City, as it became known because of the great towering buildings of white plaster that coated the monumental Roman-style buildings, along with the first large-scale illumination of an area by electric alternating current lights, was an unprecedented success.[15]
C. D. Arnold, photographer. World's Columbia Exposition, Chicago, 1893. View toward southern Colonnade across the Grand Plaza. Avery Plate no. 8. Courtesy of the Columbia University Library's C. D. Arnold Photographic Collection.As I mentioned before, Olmsted was simultaneously working on a few different projects along with the Expo, one of which was the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina - next week's topic of discussion.
[1] Witold Rybczynski, A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Scribner, 1999), 340.
[2] Ibid., 386.
[3] Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (New York: Vintage Books), 15.
[4] Witold Rybczynski, A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Scribner, 1999), 385.
[5] Ibid., 386.
[6] Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (New York: Vintage Books), 50.
[7] Ibid., 50.
[8] Patrick T. Reardon, “The World's Columbian Exposition at the 'White City',” Chicago Tribune, May 1, 1893, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-chicagodays-columbianexposition-story,0,1555067.story (accessed August 19, 2009).
[9] Witold Rybczynski, A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Scribner, 1999), 387.
[10] Ibid., 387.
[11] Ibid,m 390.
[12] Ibid., 389-90.
[14] Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (New York: Vintage Books), 15.
[15] Witold Rybczynski, A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Scribner, 1999), 399.
[15] Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (New York: Vintage Books), 196, 373.
[2] Ibid., 386.
[3] Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (New York: Vintage Books), 15.
[4] Witold Rybczynski, A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Scribner, 1999), 385.
[5] Ibid., 386.
[6] Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (New York: Vintage Books), 50.
[7] Ibid., 50.
[8] Patrick T. Reardon, “The World's Columbian Exposition at the 'White City',” Chicago Tribune, May 1, 1893, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-chicagodays-columbianexposition-story,0,1555067.story (accessed August 19, 2009).
[9] Witold Rybczynski, A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Scribner, 1999), 387.
[10] Ibid., 387.
[11] Ibid,m 390.
[12] Ibid., 389-90.
[14] Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (New York: Vintage Books), 15.
[15] Witold Rybczynski, A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Scribner, 1999), 399.
[15] Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (New York: Vintage Books), 196, 373.
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