Election 2012: The White House Landscape Artists

In honor of the upcoming election, here’s a bit of trivia:::

The grounds at the White House in Washington, D.C., were designed by Calvert Vaux and Andrew Jackson Downing.  While Downing was American, Vaux was British.  After Downing was killed in a steamboat accident (I kid you not), Vaux went on to work with Frederick Law Olmsted.  Together they designed Central Park and Morningside Park in Manhattan and Fort Greene Park and Prospect Park in Brooklyn.  Is it any wonder that he cited the Transcendentalist author of “Nature,” Ralph Waldo Emerson, as one of his influences?

I took a group Church Hopping to the Church of the Intercession in Washington Heights, part of New York City, where Calvert Vaux was commissioned to to do landscape work on the cemetery grounds.  You can read about it here.

Tags: Andrew Jackson Downing, architecture, art, Brooklyn, Burnside Writers Collective, Calvert Vaux, Central Park, church hopping, environment, Fort Greene, Frederick Law Olmsted, landscape, Manhattan, Morningside Park, nature, New York, Prospect Park, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Transcendentalism, White House