Calvert Vaux

1824 – 1895

London-born architect Calvert Vaux apprenticed under architect Lewis Nockalls Cottingham, a leader of the Gothic Revival movement, before he was recruited in by Andrew Jackson Downing to join Downing’s newly established architectural practice in Newburgh, New York. Downing, a landscape designer, writer, and editor of Horticulturist magazine, traveled to England in 1850 in search of an architect who shared his views that architecture should be visually integrated into the surrounding landscape. He found such an associate in Vaux,

…to whom he was introduced by the Secretary of the Architectural Association, and with whom so mutual was the satisfaction, he directly concluded an agreement. Mr. Vaux sailed with him from Liverpool in September, presently becoming his partner in business, and commanded, to the end, Mr. Downing’s unreserved confidence and respect.¹

The respect was mutual. Vaux’s deep admiration for his mentor would greatly influence his development as a designer. Working with Downing on projects that included designing the grounds of the White House and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. deepened his understanding and appreciation of the art of landscape design. Following Downing’s tragic death from a steamboat accident in 1852, Vaux  took over the firm, relocating within a few years to New York City, where plans were underway to build a great public park. Downing had been an influential proponent of the park, and with Vaux had begun to conceive plans for its design. Vaux was determined that Central Park should be a fitting memorial to his partner.

Following the submission of a design the park by Egbert Viele, named Chief Engineer of the Park in 1856, Vaux—who found Viele’s plan to be uninspired and unimaginative—was instrumental in advocating for a competition. When the Park Commissioners in 1857 announced that a competition would indeed be held for the design of the Park, he approached Olmsted, recently appointed Park Supervisor, to suggest that they collaborate on an entry to the competition. Their submission, the Greensward Plan, capitalized on Vaux’s aptitude for landscape drawing by including before-and-after sketches of the proposed transformation of the site—a factor which proved pivotal in the selection of their design. In implementing the design, Vaux was the chief designer of the architectural structures in the Park, working closely with Jacob Wrey Mould on the design of the Terrace, Bow Bridge and more than two dozen cast iron and stone bridges, and numerous rustic structures. With Mould, he went on to design the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History.

In 1865, Vaux was hired to design a comparable park for the City of Brooklyn. He convinced Olmsted to return from California where he was managing the mining operation at Mariposa in order to join him on the project, and the two designed Prospect Park. As Olmsted, Vaux, and Company, they went on to design the residential development of Riverside, Illinois; a park and parkway system, and other projects before dissolving the partnership in 1872. While Olmsted founded the firm through which he and his sons would become the most well-known landscape architects in the country, Vaux went on to establish an new firm focused on building design.

Vaux drowned on November 19, 1895 in Brooklyn.

1. Memoir by George William Curtis published in a posthumous edition of Downing's Rural Essays (1856)