If I told you that I've just read an excellent biographical memoir about
an American original where the author is a looming presence and sections
of the book, which masquerade as primary resource material, are actually
fabricated by the biographer, you would probably assume that I'd broken
down and bought the Edmund Morris book, Dutch. In fact, Witold Rybczynski's
biography of the great American landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted
(1822-1903), includes imagined thoughts and dialogue that the author himself
crafted. As he told Brian Lamb on Booknotes, he doesn't much like
docudramas but found the technique could be valuable. Indeed, the
author is a character in the book, sharing his opinions and walking through
Olmsted's parks, sharing his observations.
I mention this, not because it takes away from the book, but because
they are fairly typical techniques. Actually, the biographer is a
presence in virtually every biography, starting with the choice of whom
to write about, but then continuing with the editorial judgments about
how to play incidents and what to put in and leave out. If authors
like Morris and Rybczynski are more open about it than most, more power
to them.
Meanwhile, Rybczynski's subject here, in addition to designing and building
Central
Park, Prospect Park, etc., was also a sailor, farmer, journalist, founder
of The Nation, author of several still pertinent books on the functioning
of slavery in the South, and remained throughout his life an honest and
honorable public servant. The author tells his story well and offers
one important theme of Olmsted's work that retains its relevance.
Olmsted, whom we perceive as a naturalist and environmentalist, believed
that wilderness, open spaces and nature itself should serve humans.
We look on Central Park today and mistaken think of it as a preserved piece
of nature in the midst of development. Actually, the only part of
the Park that remains unchanged may be the granite outcroppings that helped
make the land cheap. He truly built parks and he did so in
order that they might serve as restorative or recuperative sanctuaries
for modern man.
This is a very interesting book and it is particularly useful as a counter
balance to Robert Caro's great biography of Robert Moses (The
Power Broker : Robert Moses and the Fall of New York). Caro makes
a pretty convincing case that Moses ended up using his enormous powers
to impose his own will on the geography of New York, regardless of the
impact on the human beings living there. Olmsted, on the other hand,
remained reticent about using his power and always built with the ultimate
users in mind. He emerges as a great American visionary and a really
admirable figure.
(Reviewed:)
Grade: (A-)
Websites:
See also:
Witold Rybczynski (
2 books reviewed)
Biography
Witold Rybczynski Links:
-WHARTON:
Witold Rybczynski Martin & Margy Meyerson Professor
of Urbanism; Professor of Real Estate
-Wharton
Real Estate Review: published by the Center and edited by Witold Rybczynski
(The Samuel Zell and Robert Lurie Real Estate Center)
-EXCERPT:
Chapter One: "Tough as Nails"
-ESSAY: More Perfect Union of Function and
Form: The National Constitution Center, which opened in Philadelphia on July 4, is destined to take its place among the nation's leading public
monuments. (WITOLD RYBCZYNSKI, 7/08/03, NY Times)
-ESSAY:
Why We Need Olmsted Again (Witold Rybczynski, Wilson Quarterly)
-ESSAY:
Keeping the Modern Modern: By trying to keep up with the times, the
Museum of Modern Art may obliterate its architectural diary of modernism
(Witold Rybczynski, The Atlantic)
-ESSAY:
Moving the Bell: Soon America's most venerated icon will have
a new, and more appropriate, home (Witold Rybczynski, The Atlantic)
-ESSAY:
Sounds as Good as it Looks: Sounds as Good as It Looks: Seiji
Ozawa Hall, at Tanglewood, is modeled on the world's few great concert
halls (Witold Rybczynski, The Atlantic)
-ESSAY:
The Virtues of Suburban Sprawl (Witold Rybczynski, Wall Street Journal)
-INTERVIEW
: A conversation with Witold Rybczynski The architect turned author
talks about the beauty of the screw (Loren Fox, Salon)
-REVIEW:
of Country, Park & City: The Architecture and Life of Calvert Vaux
by Francis R. Kowsky (Witold Rybczynski, NY Review of Books)
-FORUM:
"I Have a Dream" Ideas for Rebuilding American Culture (Policy Review,
March-April 1996, Number 76)
-INTERVIEW:
(Booknotes, CSPAN)
-INTERVIEW:
Landscape Artist: A conversation with Witold Rybczynski, whose biography
of Frederick Law Olmsted tells a story of nineteenth-century America through
landscape architecture (The Atlantic)
-INTERVIEW:
Our Cities, Ourselves An interview withWitold Rybczynski (KERRY MICHAELS,
Home Arts)
-Biography
on Book TV: Biographer Witold Rybczynski (C-SPAN)
-REVIEW:
(Suzanna Lessard, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
(David Laskin, Washington Post Book World)
-REVIEW:
Olmsted's glorious wide-open spaces (Craig Whitaker, USA TODAY)
-REVIEW:
On Architecture: The Cultivator by Martin Filler Frederick Law
Olmsted, and what Witold Rybczynski doesn't understand about him. (New
Republic)
-REVIEW
: of A CLEARING IN THE DISTANCE: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the
Nineteenth Century By Witold Rybczynski (Anthony Bianco , Business
Week)
-ARTICLE:
Biographer shows Olmsted's influence in shaping Seattle (Robin Updike,
Seattle Times)
Book-related and General Links:
GENERAL:
-ARTICLE:
Prince of Parks: The influence of Frederick Law Olmsted ripples through
the urban landscape, including Portland's (John Strawn, The Oregonian)
-ARTICLE:
Belle Isle designer helped us see nature (Suzanna Lessard, Detroit
Free Press)
-ESSAY:
The Genius of the Place ( William H. Jordy, NY Review of Books)
-Central
Park Website
-Frederick
Law Olmsted: A celebration of the life and work of Frederick Law Olmsted,
founder of American landscape architecture
-World's
End: Frederick Law Olmstead
-A
View of Frederick Law Olmsted © by R.H. Albright
-ESSAY: A Garden for All as Private Eden: Central
Park, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year, is our great urban oasis. (HERBERT MUSCHAMP, 5/23/03, NY Times)
-EDITORIAL: Central Park's Golden Age: The
843 acres that make up the nation's best-known municipal park showcase nature at its finest. (NY Times, 6/01/03)
Comments:
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