Adolph Strauch (b. August 30, 1822 – 1883) was a renowned

landscape architect A landscape architect is a person who is educated in the field of landscape architecture. The practice of landscape architecture includes: site analysis, site inventory, site planning, land planning, planting design, grading, storm water manageme ...

born in

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...

, known particularly for his layout designs of cemeteries like

Spring Grove Cemetery Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum () is a nonprofit rural cemetery and arboretum located at 4521 Spring Grove Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio. It is the third largest cemetery in the United States, after the Calverton National Cemetery and Abraham L ...

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

, Forest Lawn in

Buffalo, NY Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...

and

Oak Woods Cemetery Oak Woods Cemetery is a large lawn cemetery in Chicago, Illinois. Located at 1035 E. 67th Street, in the Greater Grand Crossing area of Chicago's South Side. Established on February 12, 1853, it covers . Oak Woods is the final resting place o ...

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. Strauch also laid out many parks in Cincinnati, Ohio, including

Eden Park Eden Park is New Zealand's largest sports stadium, with a capacity of 50,000. Located in central Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, it is three kilometres southwest of the CBD, on the boundary between the suburbs of Mount Eden and King ...

Burnet Woods Burnet Woods, owned and operated by the Cincinnati Park Board, is an city park in Cincinnati, Ohio. The neighborhoods of Clifton and University Heights bound the park on three sides, while the University of Cincinnati west campus forms the s ...

and

Lincoln Park Lincoln Park is a park along Lake Michigan on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. Named after US President Abraham Lincoln, it is the city's largest public park and stretches for seven miles (11 km) from Grand Avenue (500 N), on the south, ...

. Strauch was hired by Spring Grove Cemetery in 1855 to handle the landscaping, and became

superintendent Superintendent may refer to: *Superintendent (police), Superintendent of Police (SP), or Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), a police rank *Prison warden or Superintendent, a prison administrator *Superintendent (ecclesiastical), a church exec ...

of the place by 1859. He also designed

Greenwood Cemetery (Hamilton, Ohio) Greenwood Cemetery is a registered historic district in Hamilton, Ohio, listed in the National Register of Historic Places on July 22, 1994. It contains 5 contributing buildings. Greenwood is designed in the style of a landscaped park and g ...

Biography

Born in the province of Silesia of Prussia in 1822, Strauch began learning the art of landscaping around 1838, at age sixteen, when he studied in Vienna, Austria, under gardeners at Schönbrunn Palace and Schloss Laxenburg. It was at Schönbrunn Palace that he became recognized in the craft by Hermann von Pückler-Muskau, who praised his work and befriended Strauch. By 1845 Strauch had left Vienna to get a more thorough idea of gardening techniques used in areas like Belgium, Germany and France.

Career

In 1852, soon after arriving in the U.S., Strauch designed

Mount Storm Park Mount Storm Park is a City of Cincinnati municipal park situated on a site on the western slope of a hill overlooking the Mill Creek Valley. In the mid-19th century the property comprised the site of the estate of Robert Bonner Bowler, a dry good ...

in Cincinnati in the neighborhood of

Clifton Clifton may refer to: People *Clifton (surname) *Clifton (given name) Places Australia * Clifton, Queensland, a town **Shire of Clifton *Clifton, New South Wales, a suburb of Wollongong *Clifton, Western Australia Canada *Clifton, Nova Scotia ...

, which was at that time the private villa estate of entrepreneur Robert A. Bowler. His reputation quickly grew and he designed many private gardens in that area. After reading ''Cosmos'' by

Alexander von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 17696 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, p ...

, with its depictions of grave gardens in China, Strauch was inspired to implement similar plans in the United States. By lessening the appearance of gaudy monuments and railings that were so much a part of cemetery layouts at the time, Strauch focused more on expansive areas of lawn and clusters of trees and shrubs. He did allow some monuments to be constructed or kept, but only those that met certain specifications (typically those with a

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

appearance). After redesigning the layout of

, which had been rundown and filled with

swampland A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

, the cemetery was transformed into an area of scenic lakes and clusters of trees and bushes. The project earned Strauch praise in the U.S. and abroad, including from

Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the USA. Olmsted was famous for co- ...

and the French landscape architect Edouard André. Other cemeteries, like

Crown Hill Cemetery Crown Hill Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery located at 700 West 38th Street in Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana. The privately owned cemetery was established in 1863 at Strawberry Hill, whose summit was renamed "The Crown", a high poi ...

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Mari ...

, modelled their landscaping concept after Spring Grove.

References

German gardeners American landscape architects Architects from Cincinnati 1822 births 1883 deaths American designers {{Horticulture-stub