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building the american landscape - Univerza v Novi Gorici

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The result of <strong>the</strong>se journeys were <strong>the</strong> previously mentioned books, Walks and Talks<br />

of an American Farmer in England (1852) and a series of writings published<br />

between 1856 and 1857, and ga<strong>the</strong>red in a collection entitled Journeys and<br />

Explorations in <strong>the</strong> Cotton Kingdom (1861), 258 which were an analytical description<br />

of life on <strong>the</strong> sou<strong>the</strong>rn plantations without <strong>the</strong> melodramatic stereotypes of <strong>the</strong><br />

anti‐slavery novels. However, <strong>the</strong> importance of his English account is most<br />

significant in his history of <strong>the</strong> beginnings of contemporary <strong>landscape</strong> design.<br />

When Olmsted published <strong>the</strong> books Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in<br />

England, he dedicated <strong>the</strong> first volume to George Geddes 259 (1809‐1883), a wellknown<br />

politician from New York and his mentor for agriculture, whereas <strong>the</strong> second<br />

volume paid homage with a less personal reference to <strong>the</strong> figure of Andrew Jackson<br />

Downing.<br />

Olmsted’s training, <strong>the</strong>refore, was influenced by his direct experiences and firsthand<br />

observations, which convinced him to follow <strong>the</strong> popular ideas of <strong>the</strong><br />

picturesque, thus definitively endorsing <strong>the</strong> passage from rigid geometry to<br />

inherent, winding shapes. Olmsted’s approach was not, <strong>the</strong>refore, prone to<br />

<strong>the</strong>oretical or profane enthusiasm and for this very reason he was not lured to join<br />

in with <strong>the</strong> fashion of <strong>the</strong> time.<br />

In 1857, he had acquired sufficient authority to present his own curriculum to <strong>the</strong><br />

commissioners in charge of <strong>the</strong> creation of Central Park. With <strong>the</strong> support of<br />

people of <strong>the</strong> calibre of Washington Irving, Horace Greeley and William Cullen<br />

Bryant, he was elected Park superintendant and was able to edge closer to <strong>the</strong><br />

world of <strong>landscape</strong> design. As soon as he heard of <strong>the</strong> design competition (1858) to<br />

develop <strong>the</strong> Park, he decided to ask permission from <strong>the</strong> head engineer, his<br />

superior, to take part and joined forces with Calvert Vaux.<br />

258 Journeys and Explorations in <strong>the</strong> Cotton Kingdom (1861) by Olmsted is an abridged version of his<br />

dispatches to <strong>the</strong> New York Times collected in three volumes: A Journey in <strong>the</strong> Seaboard Slave<br />

States (1856), A Journey Through Texas (1857), A Journey in <strong>the</strong> Back Country in <strong>the</strong> Winter of 1853‐<br />

1854 (1860)<br />

259 George Geddes (1809‐1883) was an engineer, agronomist and politician from New York. He was a<br />

member of <strong>the</strong> New York Senate and was well‐known in agricultural circle for his model farm at<br />

Fairmount. He also built <strong>the</strong> first plank road in America (1846) an interesting model of a wooden<br />

road covered with a series of planks, which was very common in <strong>the</strong> Midwest and Northwest of <strong>the</strong><br />

US during <strong>the</strong> 1850s.<br />

157

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