The Legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted at The North Carolina Arboretum

Known as the father of American landscape architecture, Frederick Law Olmsted and his firm completed more than 500 projects during his tenure, including designs for 40 academic institutions, dozens of public parks and parkways, landscapes at national monuments such as Yosemite and Niagara Falls, and the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. His final grand project led him to the mountains of western North Carolina during the late 1800s where he designed the landscape of the 125,000-acre Biltmore Estate for George Vanderbilt. Inspired by the rich, indigenous flora of the southern Appalachian Mountains, Olmsted sought to create the most comprehensive research arboretum in the country on the estate. Though his original plans for the arboretum never came to fruition, his vision served as an impetus for The North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville, established in 1986 by the North Carolina General Assembly. As a way to pay tribute to Olmsted's influence in landscape architecture in the United States, The North Carolina Arboretum commissioned the first standing sculpture of Olmsted. Created by world-renowned sculptor Zenos Frudakis, the bronze statue was unveiled to the public on April 22, 2016.