Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.

The noted landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., FASLA, served as a young man on the McMillan Commission with Daniel Burnham and Charles Moore to create the plan that established the modern image of the nation’s capital city. He was an original member of the Commission of Fine Arts. Olmsted joined the design practice started by his father, Frederick Law Olmsted Sr., in 1895, which became Olmsted Brothers in 1897 following the death of partner Charles Eliot; the younger Olmsted remained with the firm until 1950. Throughout his career he worked on many projects, including the metropolitan park system in Boston, the Biltmore Estate, and landscape plans for the National Mall, Jefferson Memorial, Rock Creek Park, and the White House grounds. He prepared a master plan for Cornell University and was involved in the planning of Forest Hills Gardens. He was a founding member of the American Society of Landscape Architects and a member of the American Institute of Architects as well as actively involved in numerous planning and design organizations and commissions, including the Baltimore Park Commission, National Park Service Board of Advisors for Yosemite, National Conference on City Planning, American City Planning Institute, National Institute of Arts and Letters, and the American Academy in Rome. Olmsted was the recipient of many awards and honors during his long career, among them the American Academy Gold Medal (1949) and the U.S. Department of the Interior Conservation Service Award (1956).