CAMTalks: History Series - Frederick Law Olmsted: Bringing Nature to the City
Saturday, May 14
1:00 p.m.
with Laurence Cotton
Downtown Campus, 27 Pleasant Street, Gloucester, MA 01930
Free for members, $10 for non-members
Livestreamed on Facebook and Vimeo
April 26, 2022 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Law Olmsted, the master designer of public parks and a founder of the field landscape architecture. Join historian and filmmaker Laurence Cotton, consulting producer to the PBS special “Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing America,” as he does a deep dive into the remarkable life and career of the Renaissance-man Olmsted. A writer, philosopher, social reformer, and advocate for the preservation of natural scenery, Olmsted created some of the most beautiful public and private parks and gardens in all of North America, including several in Essex County.
In his presentation, Cotton will talk about the influences of design traditions, aesthetics and philosophies that influenced Olmsted’s thought—including English garden design, the Hudson River School and Transcendentalism. Cotton is currently based in Portland, Oregon, a city that benefits from an Olmsted-master planned park system. He originally hails from Boston, renowned for its Olmsted landscapes and the home base for generations of landscape design practitioners working for the Olmsted Bros. firm.
This CAMTalks is presented as part of Cape Ann Blossoms, on view from May 13 – 15, 2022.