
When Parks Were Radical - pepys
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/09/better-than-nature/492716/?single_page=true
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Animats
Julius Caesar, Shakespeare:

    
    
        Moreover, he hath left you all his walks,
        His private arbours and new-planted orchards,
        On this side Tiber; he hath left them you,
        And to your heirs for ever, common pleasures,
        To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves.
        Here was a Caesar! when comes such another?
    

London has had public parks for centuries. Hyde Park in London was opened to
the public in 1637. Paris's great parks were opened to the public after the
Revolution.

Olmstead was hardly the first landscape architect. Royal parks in Europe go
back many centuries, and someone had to design them. Nor was he the first to
design informal-looking but deliberately built parks. Having a fake ruin on
your estate was a status symbol in the early 19th century.

In San Francisco, we have Golden Gate Park, which is totally artificial but
doesn't look it. That was done by John McLaren.

~~~
phillc73
Charles Bridgman[1] worked as a Royal Gardener in St James' Park and Hyde
Park. He also designed many private gardens full of ruins and other conceits.

William Kent is worth a mention, but perhaps the best known, and most
wonderfully named, English landscape architect is Capability Brown.[3]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bridgeman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bridgeman)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kent)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Brown)

