Main entry:

Kowsky, Francis R., 1943-

Title & Author:

Country, park & city : the architecture and life of Calvert Vaux / Francis R. Kowsky.

Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, 1998.

Description:

ix, 378 pages : illustrations, maps ; 26 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 357-363) and index.
1. What Is a Young Architect to Do, and How Is He to Get On?: 1824-1850 -- 2. Il Buono e il Bello: 1850-1852 -- 3. The Inexhaustible Demand for Rural Residences: 1853-1856 -- 4. All That Human Intelligence Can Achieve in Adorning and Beautifying the Earth: 1857-1858 -- 5. The Only Thing That Gives Me Much Encouragement That I Have in Me the Germ of an Architect: The Terrace -- 6. Possible Together, Impossible to Either Alone: 1859-1865 -- 7. Country Life in Comparison with City Life ... a Question of Delicate Adjustment: 1866-1872 -- 8. Always Light-Armed, Cheerful, and Ready for a Run to the Nearest Summit: 1873-1880 -- 9. A School of Romanticists Even Then Fast Vanishing: 1881-1895.
Dust jacket.

Summary:

After beginning his career as an architect in London, Calvert Vaux (1824-1895) came to the Hudson River valley in 1850 at the invitation of Andrew Jackson Downing, the reform-minded writer on houses and gardens. As Downing's partner, and after Downing's death in 1852, Vaux designed country and suburban dwellings that were remarkable for their well-conceived plans and their sensitive rapport with nature.
By 1857, the year he published his book Villas and Cottages, Vaux had moved to New York City. There he asked Frederick Law Olmsted to join him in preparing a design for Central Park. He spent the next 38 years defending and refining their vision of Central Park as a work of art. After the Civil War, he and Olmsted led the nascent American park movement with their designs for parks and parkways in Brooklyn, Buffalo, and many other American cities.
Apart from undertakings with Olmsted, Vaux cultivated a distinguished architectural practice. Among his clients were the artist Frederic Church, whose dream house, Olana, he helped create; and the reform politician Samuel Tilden, whose residence on New York's Gramercy Park remains one of the country's outstanding Victorian buildings. A pioneering advocate for apartment houses in American cities, Vaux designed buildings that mirrored the advance of urbanization in America, including early model housing for the poor. He planned the original portions of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History and conceived a stunning proposal for a vast iron and glass building to house the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia.
Especially notable are the many bridges and other charming structures that he designed for Central Park. Vaux considered the Park's Terrace, decorated by J.W. Mould, as his greatest achievement. An active participant in the cultural and intellectual life of New York, Vaux was an idealist who regarded himself as an artist and a professional. And while much has been written on Olmsted, comparatively little has been published about Vaux. The first in-depth account of Vaux's career, Country, Park, and City should be of great interest to historians of art, architecture, and urbanism, as well as preservationists and other readers interested in New York City's past and America's first parks.

Resources:
Book review (H-Net)
Publisher description

ISBN:

0195114957 (alk. paper)
9780195114959 (alk. paper)

Subject:

Vaux, Calvert, 1824-1895.
Vaux, Calvert.
Vaux, Calvert 1824-1895
Vaux, Calvert, (1824-1895)
Umschulungswerkstätten für Siedler und Auswanderer Bitterfeld
Architects United States Biography.
Architectes États-Unis Biographies.
Architects.
Architektur
Biografie
ARQUITETURA (BIOGRAFIAS)
Architects United States 19th century Biography.
Architecture moderne 19e siècle États-Unis.
United States.

Form/genre:

Biography
Biographies.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 179712
Call No.: ID NA44.V384; ID:98-B264
Status: Available