200th Anniversary Olmsted Events
This year marks the 200th Anniversary of the birth of Frederick Law Olmsted. Various groups, including the Portland Parks Foundation, will be hosting different lectures, panels and films to dive deeper into the social and environmental impacts of Olmsted’s work. Take a look at the different topics that will be covered over the next few months!
February
February 9, at 7 PM
“Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing America”
A Screening of the PBS Film “Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing America” and Q&A with the Originator and Consulting Producer, Laurence Cotton. Part of Friends of Columbia Park Olmsted 2022 Good Parks Speaker Series https://www.focp.org/olmsted-2022-speaker-series.html
To Olmsted, a park was both a work of art and a necessity for urban life. Olmsted's efforts to preserve nature created an environmental ethic decades before the environmental movement became a force in American politics. With gorgeous cinematography and compelling commentary, this film presents the biography of a man whose parks and preservation are an essential part of American life.
February 24, 6 PM - 8 PM
“Virtual Presentation and Discussion: Complicating Olmsted in Portland: Challenges, Lessons and Opportunities”
The Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University offers a look at the legacy of the Olmsted Brothers' Plan for Portland’s park system.
Speakers will include: Laurence Cotton, a historian and filmmaker who served as Consulting Producer to PBS special “Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing America.” Dr. C.N.E. Corbin, faculty in the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning and Portland Parks Board member, studies the relationships between society and nature within the built environment . Dr. Ellen Shoshkes, adjunct professor in the Toulan School, is the author of The Design Process: Case Studies of Project Development and other scholarship on the transnational exchange of urban design ideas, and housing and community development. Register here to receive webinar information: https://pdx.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ac3ePP0MSHG-PGBpN54gKA
March
Portland Parks Foundation Green Dreams Series Lecture:
March 7, 6PM, Zoom
“From the Cotton Kingdom: Frederick Law Olmsted, Abolition and Park Design”
As Frederick Law Olmsted was submitting his entry to design Central Park in the 1850s, the New York Times sent him on a research trip throughout the American South. The country stood on the precipice of civil war. Olmsted, a budding landscape designer, but also a gifted observer and writer wrote about the practices of slavery--and about the slaves themselves. His writings helped crystalize the northern states' opposition to slavery.
In the summer of 2019, landscape architect Sara Zewde embarked on a road trip of her own, retracing Olmsted’s steps to understand how his travels and observations led to the formation of landscape architecture as we know it today, and how her nascent practice fits into it. Zewde, is the founder of Studio Zewde, a landscape architecture, urban design, and public art practice based in Harlem, New York City. Named a 2021 Emerging Voice by the Architectural League of New York, the studio’s work is lauded for its design methodology that syncs site interpretation and narrative with a dedication to the craft of construction. She is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, and is working on a book on Olmsted and the Cotton Kingdom.
March 9, 7 PM
Local architectural historian and author of 'The Legacy of Olmsted Brothers in Portland, Oregon' William J. Hawkins will offer his views on the Olmsted influence on the Portland Park system.
Part of Friends of Columbia Park Olmsted 2022 Good Parks Speaker Series https://www.focp.org/olmsted-2022-speaker-series.html
Portland Parks Foundation Green Dreams Series Lecture:
March 14, 6 PM, location TBD
“Parks and Consequences—Hidden Histories of Olmsted Parks Tradition, from New York to Portland.”
Catherine McNeur, professor of history, PSU, and author of Taming Manhattan: Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City, will probe the beginnings of Central Park and how its development influence our attitudes and practices with parks today, Carl Abbott, emeritus professor of urban studies and planning, PSU, and author of Portland in Three Centuries and many other books about Portland, will reflect on how the Olmsted firm's work in Portland shaped the city in both good and questionable ways.
Portland Parks Foundation Green Dreams Series Lecture:
March 28, 6 PM, Location TBD
“Beyond Recreation: Climate, Social Justice, and the Urban Landscape Ahead”
Vivek Shandas, professor in the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and founder of the Sustaining Urban Places Research Lab at PSU, and chair of Portland’s Urban Forestry Commission and CNE Corbin, assistant professor of Urban Political Ecology, PSU, will discuss how our outlook on parks and parks programming can adapt to better serve the goals of social justice and the critical needs wrought by climate change.
April
April 5 (eve.)
Program at the Oregon Historical Society. Presenter: Laurence Cotton. Title: “Frederick Law Olmsted: Bringing Nature into the City and Creating Breathing Space for Democracy.” Details TBD
April 26, Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. Birthday