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Horace Cleveland

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Horace William Shaler Cleveland

Horace William Shaler Cleveland (1814-1900) was a noted American landscape architect, sometimes considered second only to Frederick Law Olmsted. His approach to natural landscape design can clearly be seen in projects including the Grand Rounds in Minneapolis, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts, the boulevard system in Omaha, Nebraska, and St. Anthony’s Park in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Life

Horace William Shaler Cleveland was born in Lancaster, Massachusetts, and educated at the Lancaster School, a Unitarian Universalist school organized by his parents in accordance with the theories of Swiss educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827). The school emphasized frequent excursions for direct observation and study of nature through drawing and map-making. The family was socially linked to philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson through Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Horatio Greenough, and one of Emerson's cousins, and Transcendentalism strongly influenced Cleveland's upbringing.

In 1841 Cleveland left Massachusetts to purchase a farm on the Delaware River in Burlington, New Jersey, where he became a scientific farmer, joined horticultural societies, and wrote articles for horticultural journals.

In 1854, at the age of 40, Cleveland returned to Massachusetts to establish the Cleveland and Copeland landscape practice in Boston with partner Robert Morris Copeland. Their first job was the design of the State Farm at Westborough, Massachusetts, followed by Cleveland's first major design, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts (1855). He also assisted in the design of Boston's park spaces, emphasizing his famous concepts of open spaces and interconnected byways, and a few years later designed Eastwood Cemetery (1872) in Lancaster, Massachusetts with his son.

Cleveland moved to Chicago in 1869, opened his own landscaping firm, and throughout his career designed major parks and private landscapes in Illinois, Minneapolis, and throughout the midwest, including Highland Park, Illinois (1869). In 1872, Cleveland was retained by the city of Chicago to rebuild South Park, originally designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, after the great Chicago fire. Cleveland wrote his landscaping guide, Landscape Architecture as Applied to the Wants of the West, in 1873 and was afterward hired by William Rainey Marshall to design St. Anthony's Park in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

From 1878 until his death in 1900, Horace Cleveland not only completely revised the park systems of Minneapolis and St. Paul, but lent his extensive knowledge of landscaping to numerous projects, completing his last major project, landscaping for the campus at the University of Minnesota, in 1892. He died in Chicago.

Philosophy

Cleveland was a preservationist by nature, respecting the natural landscape features around him and shunning unnecessary decoration. Believing that a growing population would make open spaces like parks all the more valuable and desirable, Cleveland wrote that, to be successful in the landscape architecture field, one must "Look forward a century, to the time when the city has a population of a million, and think what will be their wants." Essentially, he believed that a good landscape architect should look to the future in order to design sustainable landscapes in the here and now, and that landscape architects should speak openly against the destruction of natural landscapes, to make sure that they would be available for future generations to enjoy.

In addition, he believed that a design should not be limited by the financial or physical means of the designer or the commissioner. He theorized that, when the proposition of a new park or parkway came about, natural opposition was to be expected from the public. He knew this because he understood that the general populace saw outdoor city projects as a source of needless taxation for them, and that they did not believe that they could benefit from a public park in the same capacity as the wealthy. Eliminating this belief and creating parks that were meant to be enjoyed by all became one of Cleveland's most important endeavors.

In 1873 Cleveland wrote “Landscape Architecture As Applied to the Wants of the West.” This book is known as one of the first definitive attempts to describe on a broader scope the profession of landscape architecture. In its preface he wrote:

The term “Landscape Architecture” is objectionable, as being only figuratively expressive of the art it is used to designate. I make use of it, under protest, as the readiest means of making myself understood, in the absence of a more appropriate term. If the art is ever developed to the extent I believe to be within its legitimate limits, it will achieve for itself a name worthy of its position. Until it does so, it is idle to attempt to exalt it in the world’s estimation, by giving it a high-sounding title.

Major landscape projects

In the 1880s, Cleveland was hired by the Minneapolis Park Board of Commissioners to create a series of parks and interconnected byways that would increase property values, connect larger parks, drive up the desire for private development, and hopefully increase general revenues in the city over time. The result of Cleveland’s effort is the famous “Grand Rounds,” an immense series of roads, parks, byways and river boulevards that joined the “Twin Cities” of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The official title “Grand Rounds,” came much later, but Cleveland’s vision for the scenic byway is timeless, and the Grand Rounds are known today as one of the best urban park systems in the world.

In 1889, the park commissioners for the city of Omaha sought Cleveland’s advice in designing a large park in the center of the city. Cleveland stated that the center of any large park system, including the one intended for this city, should include a “great central park” that blocked the sights and sounds of the city. Cleveland advised that the park commissioners purchase a lot no less than 50 acres in size, and that it should be situated many miles away from the heavily populated city districts.

Other major projects included:

  • 1873: Cleveland receives honorary professorship title. Although he never attended any university, his own educational and professional knowledge led to his being addressed as “Professor H. Cleveland.”
  • 1878: Designed the Roger Williams/New England Botanical Gardens in Providence, R.I..Designed the Cleveland Arboretums in Cleveland, OH. Designed Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis.
  • 1886: Created the Blackstone Boulevard in Providence, R.I., which connected Blackstone Park, Butler Hospital, and the Swan Point Cemetery.
  • 1890s: Designed the landscaping for the Fergus Falls State Hospital in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and the Dwight. D. Eisenhower Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Leavenworth, Kansas.
  • 1892: Landscaped the campus for the University of Minnesota. Designed the parks and boulevards system in Omaha, Nebraska that still guides the city today.

Social Movements and Influence Over Time

Cleveland’s most important social movement could arguably be his contribution to the Minneapolis park systems. In lending his unique touch to these parks and scenic byways, Cleveland established a park system that embodied his philosophy of open spaces, naturalistic design, and the importance of preserving these public spaces for future generations. In the words of Cleveland himself: “They [the wealthy elite] will have wealth enough to purchase all that money can buy, but all their wealth cannot purchase a lost opportunity, or restore natural features of grandeur and beauty, which would then possess priceless value…” In this way, Cleveland inspired future generations of landscape architects to think before tearing down the natural landscape.

In addition, he stated that landscape architecture involved not just “decorating” the landscape, but that it was a landscape architect’s duty to design parks, residential and commercial landscapes always with careful consideration to the environment around them and to be ever mindful of how future generations would make use of them. It is evident that Horace Cleveland contributed much to the future of landscape architecture and to the pursuit for a more naturalistic landscape concept.

Cleveland’s designs in the mid to late 1800s shaped the future of all park systems for Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. Metropolitan Council Chair Peter Bell reflected on the contributions of Horace Cleveland: “Imagine this metropolitan area had it not been for the Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners and landscape architect Horace Cleveland. Their vision 100 years ago helped create a network of scenic drives, parks and river boulevards along the lakes and rivers in Minneapolis and St. Paul, now recognized as one of the best urban park systems in the world.”

References

  • Cleveland, Horace W.S. 1873. Landscape Architecture as Applied to the Wants of the West. Chicago. Jansen, McClurg & Co.
  • Daniel Joseph Nadenicek, "Emerson's Aesthetic and Natural Design: A Theoretical Foundation for the Work of Horace William Shaler Cleveland", in Nature and Ideology: Natural Garden Design in the Twentieth Century, edited by Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn, vol. 18 of the Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C. [1]
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