Landscapes and Writings of Harold Caparn
From Clear Vision To Future Delight 1890-1945

Harold Caparn (1864-1945) gained public recognition during his lifetime as an outstanding designer, teacher, writer and leader in the profession of landscape architecture. He made important contributions to National Parks, influenced the future of State Parks and solved problems regarding City Parks. He proposed a great Water Park for New York City that is now managed by The National Park Service. He secured the future of Central Park in Manhattan when it was about to be destroyed by politicians. His artistically conceived landscape designs and his many timely and influential writings are studied here for the first time since his death in 1945.

What are some of his notable designs? Caparn designed the grand entrance concourse and central court of the New York Zoological Park--The Bronx Zoo (1900). He laid out the broad court, with its sweeping green, to display the dignity of the Beaux-Arts buildings. The court is now a designated New York City Landmark. Caparn was the town planner and landscape architect of Village One in Sheffield, Alabama (1918), where he laid out the streets and parks in a symbolic design that visually expressed the hope for victory in WWI. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Caparn designed the plantings of trees and shrubs on the campus of Brooklyn College (1938) that quickly became known for its beauty. Caparn was the consulting landscape architect to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (1912-1945). He designed there, among others, the impressive Osborne Garden, the beautiful Magnolia Plaza and the famed Cranford Rose Garden. He designed the large section of the Garden now known as the Plant
Family Collection. Its educational usefulness and beauty of design bring many visitors to the Garden. These, and other of his landscapes, can still be seen.

Harold Caparn immigrated from England to America in the early fall of 1889. He had studied horticulture, drawing and garden design in England with his father, Thomas J. Caparn, a nursery owner, painter and prize-winning garden designer. In the late 1880s Harold studied architecture at the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. After arriving in America, he spent the next decade establishing his credentials in the developing profession of landscape architecture. He worked from about 1890 to 1897 for J. Wilkinson Elliott, nurseryman and landscape gardener in Pittsburgh.

In 1898 he set up his own solo office in landscape architecture at Yonkers, New York. He moved his office in 1902 to Manhattan, where he remained until his death. During the first decade of the new century his reputation grew rapidly among upper echelon clients in New York City and farther afield. During 1911-1912 Caparn reached several highpoints in his career and his life. He was married and had a bright family of two step-sons and two young daughters. His wife was a well-regarded professional in music as a teacher of singing in New York City.

Harold Caparn was especially recognized during this two-year period for his intellectual capacity, leadership qualities and professional depth in landscape architecture. This book will describe and illustrate his work leading to these high points and the maturity of his work that followed from them. By way of introduction, let us survey his achievements during just these two years.

In the summer of 1911, Harold Caparn was appointed to teach the first course on landscape architecture offered by Columbia University in New York City. He was among three members of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) who set up the curriculum for
Columbia. In the several years following they taught rotating subjects in the course. Caparn’s specialty, informal design, was the subject of that first course.

Caparn was elected President of the ASLA for 1911-1912. He was the eighth president. He was the first elected, however, who was not one of the founders of the Society. His election showed the high regard in which he was held by the founders and his colleagues.

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden was founded in 1910. Caparn did some consulting work during 1911. At the beginning of January 1912 Caparn was officially appointed the consulting landscape architect to the Garden. He worked on shaping the planting design separately, but cooperatively, with the Olmsted Brothers firm as they laid out the overall plan and began the task of shaping the ground. Caparn began work on laying out the large portion of the Garden that illustrated the evolution of plant life, now know as the Plant Family Collection.

During this same two-year span Caparn published five articles, including three in the first two editions of Landscape Architecture, the journal of the ASLA. He was appointed an editor, together with James Sturgis Pray, a faculty member at Harvard University, of the first volume of Transactions of the Society. He wrote articles on the first course at Columbia, on informal landscape design and the first of his many essays and New York Times letters in support of Central Park in New York City. He was the featured speaker, on the relation of landscape to architecture, at the annual convention of the American Institute of Architects in Washington, D.C.

On a more personal note, he bought five acres in Briarcliff Manor, about thirty miles north of the City, on which he built a retreat for himself and his wife. This book will provide access to the heretofore unrecognized scope of landscape works that are itemized in Caparn’s client list. Another purpose will be to survey the many relevant themes that he dealt with in his published writing, widely dispersed at the time and until now not considered in whole. The study will reveal the impressive breadth of Caparn’s interests and influence.