PhD Candidate Bernardo Menezes receives Beveridge Research Grant to Study Olmsted Archives
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Recently awarded the Charles E. Beveridge Research Grant from the Friends of Fairsted, Bernardo Menezes (PhD in the Constructed Environment candidate) will have the opportunity to advance his doctoral research at the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site in Brookline, Massachusetts.
The award allows Menezes to visit the archives at the historic site, two acres of property that Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), known as the father of American landscape architecture, restored and renamed Fairsted. It includes his home and professional landscape architecture firm, which he led until his retirement in 1895.
The site is administered by the National Park Service and houses nearly one million records of Olmsted firm designs, completed both under Frederick Law Olmsted and later, his stepson and son who took over the firm. The office completed a wide range of landscape design and planning projects, and its portfolio includes 6,000 projects — more than 700 public parks, 2,000 private estates, 350 subdivisions, 250 college campuses, and 100 residential institutions, among other projects.
Menezes’s dissertation titled “‘With a Painter’s Eye and a Poet’s Soul:’ Beauty and the Consolidation of Landscape Architecture as a Field of Study in U.S. Academia” analyzes the specific circumstances under which landscape architecture transitioned from a professional practice to a recognized field of scholarly inquiry, offering a robust account of the role beauty played in its disciplinary formation.
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The Beveridge Research Grant offers an opportunity for Menezes to work with primary archival sources at the National Historic Site, specifically written correspondences and photographs, notably those that make up the Olmsted Family Photograph Collection. In total, the archival collections at the Olmsted National Historic Site include an estimated 139,000 landscape architectural plans and drawings, 70,000 sheets of planting lists, 60,000 photographic prints, 30,000 photographic negatives, 12,000 lithographs, financial records, job correspondence, records and reports, and models relating to over 5,000 design projects.
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Additionally, Menezes plans to study key projects located in the Greater Boston area designed and realized by the Olmsted firm, particularly those developed for educational institutions. Analyzing these case studies, Menezes aims to better understand how their design choices conveyed aesthetic theories. Collectively through this grant, Menezes will advance his larger research inquiry into developing a broader understanding of the contributions of the Olmsteds to landscape architecture’s pedagogy and aesthetic discourse.
“The selection committee was very impressed by [Bernardo’s] unique proposal to tie Frederick Law Olmsted’s design vision and academic ties with the growth of the field of landscape architecture here in Boston and further abroad,” said Friends of Fairsted President Tom Woodward. “We recognize [his] deep knowledge of Olmsted…and [look forward to] how [he] will use the original archival documents in [his] research.”
About the Charles E. Beveridge Research Grant
The Charles E. Beveridge Research Grant honors the eminent scholar, Series Editor of The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, and devoted friend of Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site (Olmsted NHS) and its archives and collections. The Research Grant is intended to encourage the use of these archives and foster the continued development of Olmsted scholarship.
About Friends of Fairsted
The Friends of Fairsted collaborate with the National Park Service to promote the legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted and the Olmsted firm. The Friends fund, sponsor, and develop programs and projects that enhance appreciation of over a century of professional practice, which began with Frederick Law Olmsted and continued through the work of his sons and successors, all of whom helped shape the American landscape.
