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 of landscape architecture, and to commemorate this, we invite you to a special lecture by historian and filmmaker Laurence Cotton on the remarkable life and career of the Renaissance-man Olmsted-—writer, philosopher, social reformer, advocate for the preservation of natural scenery, and creator of some of the most beautiful public and private parks and gardens in all of North America. In this presentation, Cotton, the creator and consulting producer of the PBS special Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing America, will talk about the design traditions, aesthetics and philosophies that influenced Olmsted’s work—including English garden design, the Hudson River School and Transcendentalism. Cotton will also give a visual tour of representative masterful landscapes designed by Olmsted as well as his two sons and the Olmsted Bros. landscape architecture firm, as the footprint of their works literally stretch across the entire continent of North America, though the talk will mainly focus on New York City, the Hudson River Valley and Upstate New York.

Laurence Cotton, currently based in Portland, Oregon, a city that benefits from an Olmsted-master planned park system, originally hails from Boston, also renowned for its Olmsted landscapes and the home base for generations of landscape design practitioners working for the Olmsted Bros. firm. A practicing public historian and writer/producer of historical films for PBS, Cotton was trained as a cultural anthropologist and brings that lens to bear on much of his work. He has worked with the tribal populations throughout the Columbia River watershed and also works on open space acquisition and the design of parks and trails in the Pacific Northwest. He brings training as an interpretive naturalist, is a birder and a photographer.

Registration for this Zoom event is required. To register for this event, please click here.