Speaker Series
Olmsted Speaker Series to Benefit Olmsted-Beil, Federick L. Olmsted’s house and gardens in Staten Island. More detailed information about each program is below the event summaries.
Central Park
Speaker: Sara Cedar Miller
Date: April 21, 2022
Location: Zoom
Prospect Park
Speaker: Christian Zimmerman
Date: May 11th, 2022, 10:30am-11:30am
Location: Virtual
Olmsted's Staten Island Years
Speaker: Faye Harwell
Date: To Be Determined
Location: To Be Determined
Central Park: Before and After Frederick Law Olmsted
Speaker: Sara Cedar Miller
Date: Thursday, April 21, 2022 | 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Location: Zoom
Central Park: Before and After Frederick Law Olmsted” Sara Cedar Miller, Central Park Conservancy’s historian and emerita, will discuss Olmsted’s early employment as well as the land and the people who lived on it that Olmsted (and his partner Calvert Vaux) inherited, and adapted to create their masterpiece, Central Park. The talk is in conjunction with Miller’s new book Before Central Park to be published by Columbia University Press in the Fall of 2022 for the celebration of the 200th anniversary of Olmsted’s birth.
Sara Cedar Miller first joined the Central Park Conservancy in 1984 as a photographer — a job she says changed her life. Since then, her role has evolved; today, as the Conservancy’s historian emerita, she conducts extensive research on Central Park, lectures on its history, and writes award-winning books.
Her new book, “Before Central Park,” is scheduled to be released in the Fall of 2022.
Renew, Restore and Sustain - How the Pandemic has Reshaped Prospect Park
Speaker: Christian Zimmerman, FASLA, Vice President for Capital & Landscape Management at the Prospect Park Alliance
Date: May 11th, 2022
Location: Virtual
10:30am-11:30am Program by Christian Zimmerman, Vice President, Prospect Park Alliance. Held in Picnic House
Prospect Park is Brooklyn’s flagship park, welcoming more than 10 million visitors each year. Learn about how the Alliance worked to Re:New Prospect Park given the impacts of COVID and highlight the importance of community-centered and focused investment during challenging times. Explore recent renovation projects and current ones where the design team focused on blending contemporary design into historic layers while being sensitive to the original Olmsted & Vaux plan and meeting the needs of the communities that use and border the park today.
As Prospect Park’s lead landscape architect, Christian has been the guiding hand for one of the most respected Park restorations in the country. As a park manager, he oversees day-to-day operations for all capital design, construction and landscape management, leading a team of architects, landscape architects, horticulturists, arborists, and environmentalists who work with the City, Park operations, community organizations, and user groups to balance the needs and demands of historic preservation, natural resources, and park maintenance. He also oversees the Archives Department for the Park.
His unique knowledge and skills have re-created the timeless original Olmsted design and embraced creative new uses and modern innovation. In his 31 years of shaping the Park, he has drawn on the talents of a wide range of collaborators and Alliance staff to bring the best to the revitalization. Christian is nationally recognized for his work in historic preservation and design and has been a consultant to the National Parks Service, historic and urban parks around the country. Under his leadership, the Park has won numerous local and national design awards.
Frederick Law Olmsted, the Staten Island Years
Speaker: Faye Harwell
Date: To Be Determined Fall of 2022
Location: To Be Determined
Faye Harwell co-founded landscape architecture firm, Rhodeside & Harwell Inc. 33 years ago and has designed award-winning projects throughout the United States, Canada, and overseas. Her work reflects innovative concepts in sustainability and demonstrates that new and historic landscapes are equally compatible with ecological design and the creation of vibrant, new places for people to enjoy. Faye’s expertise and passion for creating new landscapes and restoring historic properties has transformed diverse nationally significant sites, including the US National Arboretum, numerous national parks, US embassies in Indonesia, Malta and beyond, and the George Mason National Memorial, Washington, DC. Faye, holds the honor of being one of only three women to ever lead the design of a national memorial on the National Mall, earning praise from design critics, news media, and park visitors. As a student of Ian McHarg, and with her background in art history, Faye recognizes that landscape architecture has both functional and artistic consequences; it is intimately responsible for perception of a site’s historic, cultural, and natural context. Ecological resiliency, cultural resource preservation, and construction craftsmanship frame her dynamic and continuously evolving body of work in the public realm.
A Fellow and a former Trustee of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Faye is a role model for the profession and a mentor for young landscape architects. She has appeared in films on the subject of landscape design, has frequently spoken and lectured at universities and institutions in the US and Canada and is a board advisor to the National Association for Olmsted Parks. Faye is an energetic practitioner who continues to be at the forefront of design in landscape architecture with a vision that artfully creates and restores memorable landscapes for the 21st Century.
Faye loves ballet, speaks French and is a pretty good cartoonist.
