Ignatz Anton Pilát (June 27, 1820 – September 17, 1870) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n-born gardener who migrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

to work on the design and planting of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West Side, Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the List of New York City parks, fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban par ...

. Pilát was born on June 27, 1820 in St. Agatha,

Upper Austria Upper Austria (german: Oberösterreich ; bar, Obaöstareich) is one of the nine states or of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, a ...

. After studying

botany Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...

at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

, he obtained a position at the Imperial Botanical Gardens of the Schönbrunn Palace in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, where he acquired technical skills and participated in a botanical survey of the site. Later he was a gardener in Venice, which he fled during the political troubles of 1848. Pilát submitted an unofficial entry to the competition for design of Central Park. This gained him the attention of

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- ...

, who called him to New York as foreman of the gardeners. In 1863, this industrious and modest man rose to be Chief Gardener and Superintendent of the park, a position he retained for the rest of his life. Although the overall plans of Central Park were prepared by the architects, Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, credit has been given to Ignatz Pilát for the choice of plants, their distribution, and the detailed landscaping of the park. The much admired landscaped vistas owed their design to his knowledge and use of a wide variety of plants. Pilát’s characteristic style is found in many areas of the park. About 1870 Pilát, redesigned Washington Square Park in New York, which at that time was laid out as a military parade ground. Influenced by Frederick Law Olmsted, Pilát introduced more curvilinear paths to soften the military-straight lines of the old parade ground. Pilát is the uncle of Carl Francis Pilat, (1876-1933), who was a landscape architect for New York City parks. Pilát died of consumption at his home in New York on September 17, 1870, leaving "a wife and several children very poorly provided for".Obituary of Ignaz A. Pilat
''New York Times'', September 20, 1870.

References

Austrian Press and Information Service, Washington, D.C. July–August 2004. *Rybczynski, Witold.'' A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Century.'' Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, 1999, p. 176.
Frassica, Matt. ''The Many Faces of Washington Square Park.''
Reports from the Field, June 9, 2009

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pilat, Ignaz Central Park 19th-century Austrian botanists American horticulturists 1820 births 1870 deaths Austrian Empire emigrants to the United States

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