Fredrick Law Olmsted Designing America.jpg
Designer Fredrick Law Olmsted is the focus of the PBS documentary "Fredrick Law Olmsted: Designing America."
(PBS)
The special, one-episode documentary, Fredrick Law Olmsted: Designing America, will premiere Friday, June 20 at 9 p.m. on PBS.
Fredrick Law Olmsted: Designing America is a co-production of Florentine Films/ Hott Productions Inc. and WNED-TV Buffalo-Toronto.
Lawrence Hott, film director and co-producer of the documentary, said the production shows Olmsted's work in Boston, New York, Buffalo, and Chicago, which are "the more famous of Olmsted's Parks."
Olmsted was a co-designer of New York's Central Park, planner of Boston's "Emerald Necklace and Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, and pioneered the oldest coordinated system in Buffalo, NY.
"Everyone wants to claim Olmsted for their town. His parks and campuses and suburban designs are everywhere," Hott said. He added, "Olmsted did thousands of designs in his lifetime and his firm did thousands more, even up until the late 1970s. Even if Olmsted and his firm didn't actually design a certain landscape, his vision and ideals persist all over the country and he sometimes gets credit for places he never touched."
Hott has noted that Look Park in Northampton, as well as, Forrest Park in Springfield, are a few areas which have stemmed from Olmsted's work.
"His influence is deep and wide and powerful, and for my money, a very positive force in American life," Hott said.
Hott and Diane Garey have been working together since 1978 as members of Florentine Films consortium, however, decided to form Florentine Films/ Hott Productions Inc. in 1981. They have been making documentaries for over thirty years.
Their awards include an Emmy Award, two Academy Award nominations, five American Film Festival Blue Ribbons, a duPont- Columbian Journalism Award, the Erik Barnouw History Award, the George Foster Peabody Award, and 14 CINE Golden Eagles.