Mount Royal Park | The “enormous” legacy of an American “visionary”

200 years ago, on April 26, 1822, Frederick Law Olmsted was born, whose indelible mark can still be seen throughout North America. Known for his love of nature in the city, this great American landscape architect has transformed the image of many cities, including Montreal.

Henri Ouellette-Vezina
The Press

“Montreal wouldn’t be Montreal without Mount Royal Park, which we owe to Olmsted. He was a visionary. And what is quite amazing is that even today, we are very close to his vision. Already in his time, he saw parks as places that improved the quality of life and the health of populations,” explains the person in charge of large parks on the City’s executive committee, Caroline Bourgeois.

She asserts that the legacy of the landscape architect is multiple, praising “his vision he had of going beyond a definition of spaces at the heart of the industrialization of his time”.

Having become a radio columnist, Luc Ferrandez was also responsible for large parks at the City of Montreal, from 2017 to 2019, in addition to having been mayor of Plateau-Mont-Royal for a decade. For him, the legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted is “enormous”.

“Before him, there was not much thought given to the role parks played. Anything with grass and trees, we called it green space. With Olmsted, we discovered the notion of landscape and embellishment through landscape. It made a big difference,” he says.

To the City Beautiful

Like several others at the end of the 19th^and century, Frederick Law Olmsted was part – at the end of his career – of the City Beautiful movement, which was defined by the search for urban beauty for a first and foremost social purpose.

“We are extraordinarily lucky to have such a legacy in Montreal. Mount Royal is a staging of nature. It’s the idea of ​​allowing people to recharge their batteries in contact with nature worked subtly, in an urban context,” says landscape architect Daniel Chartier, a former Montreal civil servant who dedicated himself to the protection of the mountain for the past 30 years.

For Mr. Chartier, who is now involved with the Collectif en environnement Mercier-Est, Olmsted was a true avant-garde. “He didn’t follow the fashion, which in his time would have been to do very horticultural landscaping. He was aiming for a free stroll through a park, with specific themes, and space. History has proven him right and we have seen it during the pandemic: parks like Mount Royal have literally been invaded by the population,” he adds.

new realities

Despite everything, the design of large parks has changed a lot today, admits Caroline Bourgeois. “Today, real estate pressure is at the heart of our actions when we want to build large parks. And the reality is that the vision we must have over 10, 20 or 30 years is not always compatible with this pressure. »

The elected official affirms that the presence of many “physical barriers”, such as highways in urban areas, also imposes new ways of operating. “In the East, for example, if you want to connect the river and the river, there is Highway 40. So you have to find a way to cross it safely, in an area that is already highly industrial. The idea is to open up neighborhoods with green spaces that link them to each other,” she recalls.

This idea of ​​“green corridors” is indeed very current, adds Luc Ferrandez. “Instead of buying large spaces like at the time, today we acquire more bits, to then link them to each other, leading from one exceptional place to another. We don’t have any more money to buy parks at 250 million these days, ”he concludes.

Three great achievements of Frederick Law Olmsted

Mount Royal in Montreal

It was in 1872 that Montreal launched the acquisition of land on Mount Royal. Two years later, in 1874, Frederick Law Olmsted was hired to design the park. His intention is then to separate the mountain into several sectors, and to ensure compelling views of the city, with two belvederes. Which he will do, but not without opposition. At the time, voices from the business community, in particular, urged the City to allow a more “urban” development of the park. Today, Mount Royal is of great importance in the city: any new construction cannot exceed its height in terms of height, a position defended to this day by Mayor Valérie Plante.

Central Park, New York

A true icon of New York, Central Park is also the work of Frederick Law Olmsted who, with landscape architect Calvert Vaux, designed the original plans. As in Montreal, the architect faced obstacles, being regularly in opposition with the members of the Central Park Commission on his vision. Tensions were such that Olmsted lost his role as “superintendent” of Central Park in 1860. Although he remained involved, his influence in the construction of the park has faded. Today, Central Park fulfills the function of “green lung” in a very developed city, the role that Olmsted wanted to confer on it. The latter is also behind the plans for several other parks in the New York area, including the important Prospect Park, which is located in Brooklyn.

Jackson Park, Chicago

Five years before being selected to design Mount Royal Park, Frederick Law Olmsted also designed Jackson Park in Chicago, on the shores of Lake Michigan, in 1869. Like Central Park, he designed plans for this park with Calvert Vaux. It is this space which will become years later the place hosting the Universal Exhibition of 1893, held in Chicago, which was also designed in large part by Mr. Olmsted and the urban planner Daniel Burnham. Today, Jackson Park is an important place in the city. There is notably the emblematic statue of the Republic of Chicago. The park will also host the Barack Obama Presidential Center, work on which has recently begun.