• History and Ideas
  • Prehistory to Middle Ages
  • Renaissance, Baroque, Enlightenment
  • 19th Century
  • 20th Century
  • From Millennium to Olympics
• The Genius of Place
  • Design and Vision
  • Planning the Landscape
  • Management and Conservation
  • Historic Conservation
  • The Science of Landscape
  • Cities and Towns
  • Gardens and Parks
• The Power to Change
  • Climate Change
  • Sustainable Communities
  • Environment
  • Housing
  • Hunger
  • Transportation

19th Century

Europe and the USA were the great powers of the 19th Century, driven by revolutions – the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution.

Cities became crowded and the gap between the rich and the poor widened.  Life was becoming more complex in general.  Romantic, picturesque gardens and parks became a necessity to escape all this.

Public parks began to be built that offered pleasures to all that previously only the wealthy could afford. 

Joseph Paxton's Birkenhead Park on Merseyside inspired Frederick Law Olmsted's Central Park in New York.

Many see Olmsted as the first modern landscape architect – with him the contemporary field of landscape architecture was born.