Olmsted Trees: Stanley Greenberg

by Tom Avermaete, Kevin Baker, Mindy Fullilove, Stanley Greenberg (Photographer)

Overview

Olmsted’s visionary landscape architecture through the lens of a leading photographer.

Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) is considered the father of landscape architecture in the United States for his creation of several renowned urban parks and park systems around the country. Whether in Central Park in New York, the Emerald Necklace in Boston, or the park systems of Chicago, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Rochester, and Louisville—trees are essential elements of all of Olmsted’s park designs. Through Stanley Greenberg’s stunning series of black and white photographs of the trees that date to the beginnings of these parks, this volume offers an intimate encounter with Olmsted, his motifs, and his heritage. Three essays by renowned experts on history, sociology, and landscape architecture complement the narrative and present an interdisciplinary vision of Olmsted’s achievement.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783777438573
Publisher:	Hirmer Publishers
Publication date:	08/31/2022
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	432,835
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Tom Avermaete is professor of history and theory of urban design and architecture at the ETH Zurich. He is coeditor of many books, including Acculturating the Shopping Centre.


Kevin Baker is a novelist, historian, and journalist. He is the author of America the Ingenious: How a Nation of Dreamers, Immigrants, and Tinkerers Changed the World.


Mindy Fullilove is a social psychiatrist and professor of urban policy and health at the New School. She is the author of Main Street: How a City’s Heart Connects Us All. 

Stanley Greenberg is a Guggenheim Award-winning photographer. Previous books of his photography include Stanley Greenberg: Time Machines.

Editorial Reviews

Greenberg’s 100 black-and-white photographs captured in 26 of Olmsted’s city park projects portray elements that have only recently grown into their full expression, something the architect himself would not live to see.

Hyperallergic

Olmsted Trees, by the photographer Stanley Greenberg, celebrates bark that resembles barnacles, lizard skin or cooled lava . . . . Torqued trunks have knobs and cavities that evoke human eyes and animal snouts, while roots bulge like giant paws kneading the earth. The trees shrug off signs of human intervention, dwarfing fencing and playground equipment, and appearing unfazed by carvings of lovers’ initials.

The New York Times

"From Olmsted's Central and Prospect Park designs in New York, to the Emerald Necklace in Boston, or park systems in Milwaukee, Chicago, and Louisville, Greenberg's body of work functions as both an homage to Olmsted and a message about the importance of caretaking the current fragile state of Earth's natural environment."

ArtDaily

The combination of the black-and-white palette and the framing of the trees, many in close up, accentuate the bark, the knots, the growths, the branching and other characteristics of the oldest trees in Olmsted's parks in and beyond New York. Some of the trees are gnarly, almost like alien creatures rather than trees . . . . The photographs are beautiful . . . .

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