Last updated: June 5, 2024
Place
Grant Park
Olmsted Archives
Quick Facts
The Olmsted name has some serious weight in the city of Chicago; Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. planned numerous parks to compliment the World’s Columbian Exposition, which he worked on with Daniel Burnham. Though Olmsted Sr. would pass away, Burnham still had ideas for parks that would need the famous Olmsted touch.
Burnham had been working on a park, then known as Lake Park, since the mid-1890s. The city was in possession of the land, however after seeing the success of the South Park Commission at the World’s Columbian Exposition, the city transferred the land to them. After the transfer, the commission changed the name of the proposed park from Lake to Grant, honoring former president Ulysses S. Grant.
In 1903, the South Park Commission hired the Olmsted Brothers to assist Burnham. By 1907, the Olmsted Brothers had developed an entirely new plan, calling for a more formalized park structure based off French landscaping principles. This would include symmetrical spaces, along with well-defined paths and plantings.
There was a debate over what the centerpiece of Grant Park should be. Burnham had already been chosen as the architect for a new natural history museum, thanks to a $1 million donation from department store owner Marshall Field, and he felt the museum would be a perfect centerpiece. Though Field wanted the museum in the Sr. Olmsted’s Jackson Park, the younger Olmsted sons agreed with Burnham, and the Field Museum was forever placed in Grant Park.
Source: "Grant Park- IL," The Cultural Landscape Foundation
For more information and primary resources, please visit:
Olmsted Research Guide Online
Olmsted Archives on Flickr