Boston Flora

Tag: Elizabeth Hope Cushing

  • Thursday, April 28 – Sunday, May 1 – Colonial Williamsburg’s 75th Annual Garden Symposium: Responsible Gardening – Sowing Seeds for a Bright Future, Live and Virtual

    This year’s theme is inspired by Audrey Hepburn’s quote, “To plant a garden is to believe in the tomorrow”. Now more than ever it is important that we, as gardeners, create healthy landscapes for all living creatures for the future of our planet. Join featured speakers Elizabeth Hope Cushing, P. Allen Smith, Matthew Benson, Rebecca Lindenmeyr, Brie Arthur, Renny Reynolds, and Colonial Williamsburg’s talented landscape staff as they commemorate 75 years of its celebrated Garden Symposium, and share methods and techniques for creating gardens that benefit humans and wildlife in an environment both beautiful and sustainable for years to come. Both virtual and in-person options for attendance are available. Visit www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/learn/conferences for more information.

  • Wednesday, March 18, 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm – Arthur Shurcliff

    The next lecture sponsored by the Massachusetts Historical Society will take place Wednesday, March 18, from 5:30 – 7, on Arthur Shurcliff. In 1928 Boston landscape architect Arthur A. Shurcliff began what became one of the most important examples of the American Colonial Revival landscape—Colonial Williamsburg, a project that stretched into the 1940s and included town and highway planning as well as residential and institutional gardens. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1894, Shurcliff immediately went back to school at Harvard University where his mentor, Charles Eliot, helped him piece together a program in the Art History Department, the Lawrence Scientific School and the Bussey Institute. Upon graduation with a second Bachelor of Science, he worked in Frederick Law Olmsted’s office for eight years, acquiring a broad and sophisticated knowledge of the profession. When he opened his practice in 1904, Shurcliff emphasized his expertise in town planning. Two decades later, when he was tapped to be Chief Landscape Architect at Colonial Williamsburg, he was a seasoned professional whose commissions included his Boston work, campus design, town planning, and a robust practice in private domestic design. How he utilized the skills he acquired over the years, and how his professional expertise intermingled with his avocational interests in history, craftsmanship, and design is the subject of Cushing’s biography—a story that inexorably sweeps him to his work in the restoration and recreation at Colonial Williamsburg.

    Elizabeth Hope Cushing, Ph.D., is the author of a newly published book about Boston landscape architect Arthur A. Shurcliff (1870–1957), based on her doctoral dissertation for the American and New England Studies program at Boston University. She is also a coauthor, with Keith N. Morgan and Roger Reed, of Community by Design, released in 2013. Cushing is a practicing landscape historian who consults, writes, and lectures on landscape matters. She has written cultural landscape history reports for the Taft Art Museum in Cincinnati, The National Park Service, the Department of Conservation and Recreation of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and other institutions and agencies. Her contributor credits include Pioneers of American Landscape Design (McGraw Hill Companies, 2000), Design with Culture: Claiming America’s Landscape Heritage (University of Virginia Press, 2005), Shaping the American Landscape (University of Virginia Press, 2009), and Drawing Toward Home (Historic New England, 2010). She has received a grant from the Gill Family Foundation to write a biography of Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., which she is currently researching.

    This series has been made possible by the generous underwriting of Stephen Stimson Associates Landscape Architects and is cosponsored by the Mount Auburn Cemetery and the Nichols House Museum.  $10 fee, (no charge for Fellows and Members of the MHS, Mount Auburn Cemetery and the Nichols House Museum) and pre-registration required at https://dnbweb1.blackbaud.com/OPXREPHIL/EventDetail.asp?cguid=76FBBAD5-59FC-442D-8347-A5AE40DBF561&eid=50860&sid=A801527F-4B9A-49B4-9B54-FCBE293D2EFE

  • Wednesday, March 11, 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm – The Brookline Troika: Olmsted, Richardson, Sargent and the Planning of a “Model Community”

    The Massachusetts Historical Society presents The Brookline Troika: Olmsted, Richardson, Sargent and the Planning of a “Model Community” on Wednesday, March 11, at their offices at 1154 Boylston Street, with a reception at 5:30 and lecture at 6:00.  Keith Morgan, Director of Architectural Studies at Boston University is the featured speaker.

    Derived from the recently publish book, Community by Design: The Olmsted Office and the Making of Brookline, Massachusetts, this lecture will explore the close and dynamic relationship of the country’s leading landscape architect, architect, and horticulturalist in the evolution of Boston’s premier suburb. These three men lived within easy walking distance of each other in the Green Hill section of Brookline and used their private residences and landscapes as teaching and professional spaces as well. Their friendships and (occasional) conflicts informed the character of the suburban development for a community that called itself “the richest town in the world” and believed that its model was worthy of emulation.

    Keith N. Morgan is a Professor of the History of Art & Architecture and American & New England Studies at Boston University, where he has taught since 1980. He currently direct BU’s Architectural Studies Program and is a former national president of the Society of Architectural Historians. Written in collaboration with Elizabeth Hope Cushing and Roger Reed, Community by Design was published in 2013 by the University of Massachusetts Press for the Library of American Landscape History and received the Ruth Emery Prize of the Victorian Society in America.

    This series has been made possible by the generous underwriting of Stephen Stimson Associates Landscape Architects and is cosponsored by the Mount Auburn Cemetery and the Nichols House Museum. $10 fee (no charge for Fellows and Members of the MHS, Mount Auburn Cemetery and the Nichols House Museum.) Register online at https://dnbweb1.blackbaud.com/OPXREPHIL/EventDetail.asp?cguid=76FBBAD5-59FC-442D-8347-A5AE40DBF561&eid=50859&sid=28E3AC1C-BE75-4D62-BB6E-EC1C9D0EE6AB

  • Wednesday, December 3, 6:00 pm – Arthur Shurcliff: From Boston to Colonial Williamsburg

    Join historian and author Elizabeth Hope Cushing on Wednesday, December 3, at 6 pm in the Hunnewell Building at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, as she speaks of landscape architect Arthur Shurcliff’s early work in Boston and how this led to Colonial Williamsburg, his largest and most significant contribution to American landscape architecture.

    In 1928, the landscape architect and preservationist Arthur A. Shurcliff (1870–1957) began what became one of the most important examples of the American Colonial Revival landscape—Colonial Williamsburg. But before this, Shurcliff honed his skills in Boston. An 1894 engineering graduate of MIT with an interest in landscape design, Shurcliff, on the advice of Frederick Law Olmsted and with the aid of his mentor, Charles Eliot, pieced together courses at Harvard College, the Lawrence Scientific School, and the Bussey Institute. He then spent eight years working in the Olmsted office, acquiring a broad and sophisticated knowledge of the profession. Opening his own practice in 1904, Shurcliff emphasized his expertise in town planning, preparing plans for towns surrounding Boston. He designed recreational spaces that Bostonians still enjoy today, including significant aspects of the Franklin Park Zoo and the Charles River Esplanade. Historian Elizabeth Hope Cushing will speak of Shurcliff’s early work in Boston and how this led to Colonial Williamsburg, his largest and most significant contribution to American landscape architecture.  Fee Free, but registration requested. You may register on line at https://my.arboretum.harvard.edu/Info.aspx?DayPlanner=1381&DayPlannerDate=12/3/2014. Seating is limited. A reception will follow the lecture.

    The Esplanade Association is please to be a co-sponsor of this event along with the Library of American Landscape History, Boston Society of Landscape Architects, Friends of Fairsted, the and the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.