It is today, this Tuesday, April 25, the 200and birthday of one of Montreal’s greatest benefactors, the American Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), the first and still greatest star of landscape architecture. We owe him the development plan for the great park of Mount Royal.
“He is the father of the discipline, but he is also still its greatest representative”, sums up Daniel Chartier. Also a landscape architect, he devoted his professional life, as a city official, to the study and protection of the mountain. “Olmsted left a profound and in fact unequaled mark on society,” says the retiree. I don’t know anyone who has had such an impact on people’s quality of life in cities. »
Professor Nicole Valois, from the School of Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture at the University of Montreal, adds to this. “He carried out his major developments at a time when cities were developing massively, during the second half of the 19th century.and century, she says. He said he wanted to help cure the diseases of industrialization and among these diseases he already counted anxiety and depression. He was sensitive to the fact that nature brings well-being. »
The emblematic place of Montreal has once again proven its immense social, health and salutary utility during the pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of visitors enjoyed its trails while all other places of entertainment and escape in the city were idle or completely closed.
The same lingering strength of the Olmsted legacy was seen everywhere in the cities where he intervened during his long career spanning fifty years. The immediate notoriety resulting from the design, in 1858, of Central Park in New York caused contracts to tumble: Prospect Park in Brooklyn (often considered his masterpiece), Riverside in Illinois, the Emerald Necklace in Boston, the University of California at Berkeley development plan and the green spaces surrounding the Capitol in Washington.
He said he wanted to help cure the diseases of industrialization
One million dollars
Montreal, in rapid growth, managed to attract fame in the early 1870s because the City was investing in public health equipment, including the sewage treatment system following epidemics. The metropolis also concentrated Canada’s wealth in the “golden square mile” at the foot of Mt. The park cost a million at the time, a fortune equal to a year’s budget of the City.
The Grand Master didn’t respond to Central Park. Instead, he proposed a long, slow climb up the mountain through a sequence of landscapes that exacerbate the inherent characteristics of different sites by accentuating their contrasts. “The result is reminiscent of the stanzas of a poem,” says Mr. Chartier.
He himself carried out important studies on Mount Royal and the original project, particularly following the torrential rains of 1987 which had destroyed the area around the mountain. A vast consultation launched in 1990 had concluded that it was necessary to go back to the plan in the 19thand century.
“With Olmsted, we are not in the great flower gardens: he is interested in the landscape and the contrast between dense wooded areas and large open plains. A dynamic is thus established between the forces of nature and the spaces of freedom,” adds Mr. Chartier, now governor and member of the development and consultation committee of Friends of the Mountain, an organization whose mission is to protect it. and highlight it.
He explains that the meadow on the mountain does not have the scale that its designer had planned. In fact, Olmsted was not entirely satisfied with the realization of his plan. A former journalist, he then wrote a small book in 1882 to explain his vision, considered by several historians and Olmstedian specialists to be his finest text on his profession as a landscape architect.
Save the planet
The development and restoration of parks continues around the world as in Montreal, even if the creation of this type of large facility is becoming rarer in densified cities.
“The profession has changed a lot,” says Professor Valois. Before, parks were created to heal cities from industrialization. Now we have to save the planet. Ecology has become fundamental in the profession. When developing a public or private space, you have to think about the species planted, the biodiversity, the use of water. We have expanded to global issues. »
Professor Valois cites the names of new stars in her field. Gilles Clément created the Parc André-Citroën (1992) in Paris around “serial gardens” evoking colors, planets and even the days of the week. James Corner signed the High Line in New York. Ron Williams, a long-time professor at the University of Montreal, often works in China. And then Claude Cormier, of course, who signed great achievements in Toronto and Montreal.
“Olmsted is an architect who was interested in the citizens who live in the city,” comments Mr. Cormier. He worked with Calvert Vaux, and they brought to all the civil infrastructures, the bridges or the fountains, the greatest care in the details. I am a disciple of Olmsted in his practice and his way of thinking about circulation in space. He’s a master of how to wander through space. »
Architect Julie St-Arnault, from the firm Vlan Paysages, participated with Civiliti and FNX-INNOV in the design of the reconfiguration of the Remembrance and Côte-des-Neiges road intersection. This western gateway to Mount Royal was not part of the 1872 plan.
The construction site of more than 43 million will continue until 2024. It has already made it possible to destroy a viaduct of brutalist time giving precedence to the car. The Pins/Parc interchange, a similar concrete facility, was demolished in the middle of the last decade.
“These works are part of a desire to reconnect the mountain to the neighboring districts,” said Ms.me St-Arnaud. In the 1960s, the approach was to make it possible to cross the mountain quickly by car. At the moment, we keep car access, but we facilitate access for pedestrians and bicycles. Let’s say that our approach fits into Olmsted’s vision. »
She adds that the questioning of 150 years ago on living conditions in urban areas remains relevant. The new show My city in x-rays, by Olivier Niquette, on the Canal savoir also seems to go in this direction by questioning the impact of inhabited places on the well-being of the inhabitants.
Daniel Chartier makes the connection with what he considers to be a serious error in urban planning around the REM de l’Est. As much as the legacy of the creator of happiness born 200 years ago continues in quality, as much this transport project seems harmful and harmful, according to the retiree.
“I’m for public transit, but this transit project is so bad it’s beyond belief,” he said. In the 1950s and 1960s, thousands of houses were destroyed for the highways and blocked access to the river. We don’t need another urban injury. We need to reweave the places, not to destroy them again. »
With Caroline Montpetit