George E. Kessler
| George E. Kessler | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
July 16, 1862 Frankenhausen, Germany |
| Died | March 20, 1923 Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.A. |
| Resting place |
Bellefontaine Cemetery St. Louis, Missouri |
| Spouse(s) | Ida Grant Field of St. Louis m. May 14, 1900 |
| Children | George Edward Kessler, Jr. |
| Parent(s) |
Edward Carl Kessler |
Edward Carl Kessler
George Edward Kessler (July 16, 1862 – March 20, 1923) was an American pioneer city planner and landscape architect.
Over the course of his forty-one year career, George E. Kessler completed over 200 projects and prepared plans for 26 communities, 26 park and boulevard systems, 49 parks, 46 estates and residences, and 26 schools. His projects can be found in 23 states, 100 cities, in places as far flung as Shanghai, New York, and Mexico City.
"Planning", wrote Kessler, "should be comprehensive. Even though a grand urban design could only be realized in bits and pieces, and over a long period of years, still we should always know where we are going. Each bit and piece should be understandable by reference to the great plan of which it is a part. Planning must also be relevant to the particular city: its geography, its economic character, all its local peculiarities. We must," he insisted, "deal with it in its application to the entire city. The object is to make cities decent places for masses of people to live in. Cities grow mostly by accident in response to trends in the real estate market. Very little thought is given to their qualitative characters. But there comes a time when development must be subject to control, when further growth must be planned such that urbanization will no longer proceed at the expense of devastating 'nature.'"
George E. Kessler was born in Frankenhausen, Germany, to Edward Carl Kessler and Adolphe Clotilde Zeitsche Kessler on July 16, 1862. In 1865 the family, including George's sister, Fredericka Antionette Louisa, emigrated to the United States. After living briefly in New Jersey, Missouri, and Wisconsin, the family ultimately settled in Dallas, Texas, where George's father and uncle invested in a cotton plantation. His father died in 1878. After his father's death, George, at the age of sixteen, worked as a cashboy at Sanger Brothers Dry Goods.
After consultation with relatives, Clotilde decided that landscape architecture would combine the right degree of creativity and practicality to suit her son's temperament. The family moved back to Germany, where George received formal training. He undertook a two-year apprenticeship at the private landscape gardening school at the Grand Ducal Gardens in Weimar, Germany, where he studied botany, forestry, and design under Hofgärtner Armin Sckell and Garteninspector Julius Hartwig.
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