Reviews A Review of Midwestern Landscape Architecture by Barbara Geiger, Baha'i Temple, Wilmette, IL

Overshadowed by East Coast and European landscape architects, the Midwest's significant and influential landscapes have, for the most part, gone unacknowledged. The social issues that concerned designers in this region sank from view as well. Midwestern Landscape Architecture brings both these areas to light, with an intention to "foster a better understanding of the origins of landscape architecture in the American Midwest" (p.2). With his love for and experience with designed landscapes in the Midwest, William H. Tishler made an ideal editor for this work.

The careers of the thirteen practitioners in this volume cover approximately one-hundred years from 1850 to 1950, the era when major land use changes forever altered the prairies, forests, and plains of middle America. These landscape architects were responsible for providing beautiful, practical landscapes for human use, and their contributions vary from town planning to aesthetic guidelines for burial grounds to ecologically sound planting plans. The range of designers include the widely-recognized Frederick Law Olmsted—recently immortalized on a United States postage stamp—to relatively obscure names like Annette Hoyt Flanders and George Kessler. Those who have attempted to find information about these important but lesser-known landscape architects know that the relative shortness of some of the chapters belies the amount of research that went into assembling even such small biographies. It will be a pleasure for them to have all this material compiled in one book.

For some of these designers, the present collection is virtually the only published source of information about them. For others, like Olmsted and Jens Jensen, these chapters can serve as an introduction for interested readers before studying other resources. Each essay describes and illustrates the design style of its subject, many of whom were masters of the naturalistic, regional character predominant here. Because the book is arranged chronologically according to the start date of each designer's work in the Midwest, it tells the story of the evolution and growth of landscape architecture here, as well as describing the individuals involved. Philosophies of social reform, broad visions for city planning, and concern with wise use of natural resources—at a time when Americans were depleting them at rapid rate—drove this group's design work. These social issues gave substance and strength to the landscape architects' design theories and are still relevant today.

The first chapter presents Adolph Strauch, superintendent and landscape gardener of the influential Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati in the mid-nineteenth century. The developer of what became known as the "landscape lawn plan" for cemeteries, Strauch had a major effect over the next century on the design of burial grounds and other large public landscapes throughout the United States — even the redoubtable Olmsted acknowledged that Strauch influenced him. Horace W. S. Cleveland, another early practitioner, had a profound impact on landscape architecture in the Midwest, although he is unknown outside the profession. An articulate and insightful

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observer, he succinctly summarized the importance of aesthetics and planning for the newly settled area of the Midwest in a short booklet published in 1873.

Frederick Law Olmsted, best known for New York City's Central Park, was instrumental in setting the tone for landscape design in the Midwest through his designs for west suburban Riverside, Chicago's South Park, and the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, that watershed event in the planning of world's fairs and theme parks. As Olmsted aged and his health failed, his sons John Charles and Frederick Jr. successfully continued the business (detailed in a separate chapter). Remnants of the Olmsted Brothers work can best be seen in the neighborhood parks of Chicago's South Side.

Although William LeBaron Jenney is known as the father of the modern skyscraper, he was responsible for the initial design of the West Parks system in Chicago, and for the implementation and refinement of Olmsted's work at Riverside. His student Ossian Cole Simonds learned crucial site improvement techniques from Jenney, going on to develop his own naturalistic design style. He created hundreds of serene settings throughout the Midwest, with Graceland Cemetery in Chicago his best known work. Jens Jensen, Simonds' contemporary, went further in developing landscapes evocative of the Midwest's native prairies, re-designing and updating Chicago's West Parks, and creating informal, inviting grounds for some of this area's wealthiest clients. Wilhelm Miller's influence came not from his designs as much as from his articles in Country Life in America, and his forceful writing in publications at the University of Illinois Agricultural Experimental Station, for which he coined the term "Prairie style."

George Edward Kessler is best known for creating the elegant parks and boulevard system of Kansas City. Warren H. Manning's practice was based in Boston, and his Midwest projects ranged from palatial grounds in Ohio to mining towns in the Mesabi Range of northern Minnesota. Elbert Peets specialized in city planning (although he did not exclude other types of projects) throughout his career, including such innovative schemes as the plan for Greendale, Wisconsin.

Genevieve Gillette worked primarily in Michigan on such large-scale commissions as a Federal Housing Administration project and several college campuses. She became an ardent promoter of Jensen's conservation ideas, working tirelessly on public projects. Annette Hoyt Flanders, on the other hand, became know for her unique "traditional" designs, inspired by a combination of Midwestern and East Coast precedents, and applied to residential commissions.

Each of these thirteen stories is unique and describes personalities and projects responsible for our Midwestern landscape. However, the content and length of these essays varies considerably, depending, presumably, upon the research materials available. The piece on Strauch is only ten pages long, yet has an additional five pages of endnotes, while the essay on George Kessler runs eleven and a half pages with just one page of notes. The Jenney chapter contains a great deal of context, while the piece on Flanders has little context or personal information, and the entire focus is on the designer's projects. Despite these variations in content and approach, the book conveys a sense of how these designers' work related to that of each other, as well as an idea of the evolution and growth of landscape architecture in the Midwest.

Less satisfactory is the choice of illustrations for several of the essays. There are only three landscape photographs in the Olmsted chapter, each showing a water scene from the Columbian Exposition; a few different views would have expressed some of the many other aspects of his work. The caption for the Graceland Cemetery map in the Cleveland chapter doesn't indicate which portions were his work, leaving the impression that the entire site was designed by Cleveland. Two photographs of the Wade Mine at the end of the Manning chapter, although graphically portraying the bleakness of the area, seem out of place. A few typographical errors are jarring enough to note, but not serious enough to detract from the book. Jenney's birth year is given as 1802, rather than 1832, making him a remarkable 105 at his death, and contributor Victoria Ranney Post's place of residence is listed as "Greys Lake," instead of "Grayslake."

Midwestern Landscape Architecture is a collection of well-written essays about some difficult-to-research individuals. By giving voice to their unsung roles in our social and cultural history, this book makes their stories accessible to the wide audience they deserve.

Readers can purchase a copy of Midwestern Landscape Architecture (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, in cooperation with Library of American Landscape History in Amherst, Massachusetts) from the Society's Book Department. The price is $37.50 for non-members excluding sales tax, postage, and handling. Members receive a 20% discount.

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