amst430urban

..no man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne (1572-1631)

Week of October 22 - 26, 2001

For Monday, October 22

Mid Term Examination Due

Read:

in Schuyler,

Chapter IV: The Ideology of the Public Park

pp. 59-76

We're not used to thinking of parks in ideological terms. You'll need to consider what Schuyler means by an ideology, and you'll quickly see that ideology becomes the justification for taking sections of the urban landscape into public control and modifying them at public expense. The shapers of this ideology were not primarily the architects and landscape designers which created them: rather, it was the opinion leaders of the day--ministers, newspaper editors, and literary figures who argued passionately for public parks. In preparing for this class identify the predominant arguments they used, and the relationship between those ideas and American democratic ideals.

For Wednesday, October 25

Read:

in Schuyler,

Chapter V: The Naturalistic Landscape: Central Park

pp. 77 - 100

in Lopate,

"Passages in the Life of an Unpractical Man," F. L. Olmsted

pp. 241-249

Central Park is arguably America's greatest urban park. Chapter 6 in Schuyler details the process by which it came into being, complete with rather marvelous photographs of designs and the construction process. Lest we think of the park in too ideal terms, we can rely upon the selection from Lopate as a counterweight. Frederick Law Olmsted was the great designer of Central Park. The essay assigned gives us a little sense of how he received the commission and what the building of the park meant to practical men.

Central Park was of great importance for New Yorkers, but its influence extended far beyond the limits of their city. This chapter looks to other places which drew on the lessons learned in New York, applying or modifying them as the situation merited. Perhaps the story of Brooklyn's Prospect Park is most important to master. In each of the other examples presented by Schuyler the park served as a centerpiece for an independent urban center like Philadelphia or Baltimore. He could have chosen many other examples as well: Boston, or Providence, perhaps. Brooklyn was not an independent entity, however, and Prospect Park needed to be designed in such a way that it was not in competition with Central Park. Be sure to understand how this park differed conceptually.