History of landscape architecture

The discussion of the history of landscape architecture is a complex endeavor as it shares much of its history with that of landscape gardening and architecture, spanning the entirety of man's existence. However, it was not until relatively recent history that the term "landscape architecture" or even "landscape architect" came into common use.

"Landscape architecture" was first used by Gilbert Laing Meason in his book On The Landscape Architecture of the Great Painters of Italy (London, 1828). Meason was born in Scotland and did not have the opportunity to visit Italy. But he admired the relationship between architecture and landscape in the great landscape paintings and drew upon Vitruvius' Ten books of architecture to find principles undere relationship between built form and natural form.

'Landscape architecture' was then taken up by John Claudius Loudon and used to describe a specific type of architecture, suited to being placed in designed landscapes. Loudon was admired by the American designer and theorist Andrew Jackson Downing and 'landscape architecture' was the subject of a chapter in Downing's book A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America (1841).

This led to its adoption by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. Frederick and a man named George Oskar gave a different slant to the meaning of 'landscape architecture', using the term to describe the whole professional task of designing a composition of planting, landform, water, paving and other structures. Their first use of this term was in the winning entry for the design of Central Park in New York City. Olmsted and Vaux then in 1863 adopted 'landscape architect' as a professional title and used it to describe their work for the planning of urban park systems. Olmsted's project for the Emerald Necklace in Boston was widely admired and led to the use of 'landscape architecture' as a professional title in Europe, initially by Patrick Geddes and Thomas Mawson. Frederick Law Olmsted and Beatrix Farrand, with eight other leading practitioners

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