Public Parks

The ACES Funk Library is home to City Planning and Landscape Architecture reference and resource materials. Included in this collection are items related to public parks. It contains volumes authored by Frederick Law Olmsted (Central Park, NY) and Daniel Burnham (Plan of Chicago), two major figures in urban design and landscape architecture at the turn of the century. The items displayed here relate to park planning and design in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century.

New Ideals in the Planning of Cities, Towns and Villages.By John Nolen.New York: American City Bureau, 1919.pp. 72-73.

WHAT IS A PARK?

“The term ‘parks’ is used in a loose sense to cover all sorts of public grounds. City squares, commons, public gardens, playgrounds, neighborhood centers, parkways, large outlying reservations or forests, and parks proper.”

Nolen, p. 75.

Plan of ChicagoBy Daniel H. Burnham and Edward H. Bennett.Chicago: The Commercial Club, 1909.p. 52.

“Every city worthy of the name has public parks of some sort, and they are now recognized as a necessity of city life, a part of the city plan, just as streets and schools are. They contribute to the pleasure and health of urban populations more than any other recreative feature, and furnish the most necessary and valuable antidote to the artificiality, confusion, and feverishness of life in cities.”New Ideals in the Planning of Cities, Towns

and Villages.By John Nolen.New York: American City Bureau, 1919.p. 71.

Plan of ChicagoBy Daniel H. Burnham and Edward H. Bennett.Chicago: The Commercial Club, 1909.pp. 56-57.

“Chicago, on becoming a city, chose for its motto Urbs in horto – a city set in a garden. Such indeed it then was, with the opalescent waters of the Lake at its front, and on its three sides the boundless prairie carpeted with waving grass bedecked with brilliant wild flowers. The quick advance of commerce and manufactures, the rapid building of railroads and factories, and the hastily constructed homes of operatives crowded out nature’s parterres of flowers. Still the motto lingered in the minds of men, and in 1839 the struggle began to secure for the fast-growing population park spaces which should at least recall the gardens that of necessity had been sacrificed.”

Plan of ChicagoBy Daniel H. Burnham and Edward H. Bennett.Chicago: The Commercial Club, 1909.p. 43.

Plan of ChicagoBy Daniel H. Burnhamand Edward H. Bennett.Chicago: The Commercial Club, 1909.p. 50.

Lakeshore from Chicago Avenue on the north to Jackson Park on the south.

West Side Park, Champaign, IL“West Side Park is the

only one in the neighborhood. It provides an attractive rest area for the downtown shoppers, a convenient rest area and meeting place for people, play space for children, and generally enhances the Central Business District.”Progress and Planning: Champaign

Park District.By Champaign Park District.Champaign, IL: Park District, 1967.p. 7.

Hessel Park, Champaign, IL “Hessel Park is one

of the oldest in the District. It serves the immediate area as a neighborhood park, and is extensively used as a large community park.”Progress and Planning: Champaign

Park District.By Champaign Park District.Champaign, IL: Park District, 1967.pp. 8-9.

For more books and resources about Public Parks, visit the Funk Library!