The pioneering landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who helped design Central Park in New York City, described his vision of the role of parks in urban development in a speech given in Boston, Massachusetts, on February 15, 1870. He understood that the physical and mental well-being of a city’s population translated directly into its economic health. Olmsted also saw parks as emblems of social democracy where all classes of city dwellers could mingle in a rejuvenating environment. Olmsted eventually became discouraged by the lack of public support for his projects and spent his later efforts designing private parks for wealthy clients.

主持建造了纽约中央公园的卓越的景观设计师奥姆斯特德，1870年2月15日在波士顿进行的一次演讲中，阐述了他对公园在城市发展中所扮演的角色的看法。他认为，一个城市所有居民物质和精神上的状态与这个城市的经济发展息息相关。而公园做为社会民主的象征之一是一个可以令所有阶层的市民都可以进入并享用的一个休闲场所。但最终奥姆斯特德还是对公众没能对他的项目给予足够的支持和关注表示失望，并导致他此后一直接受富人的委托来设计私家花园。


From Olmsted’s “The Unplanned Growth of Cities”
无序的城市

What accommodations for recreation can we provide which shall be so agreeable and so accessible to the great body of citizens, and which, while giving decided gratification, shall also cause those who resort to them for pleasure to subject themselves, for the time being, to conditions strongly counteractive to the special enervating conditions of the town? In the study of this question, all forms of recreation may, in the first place, be conveniently arranged under two general heads.… Games chiefly of mental skill, as chess, or athletic sports, as baseball, are examples of means of recreation of the first class, which may be termed exertive recreation; music and the fine arts generally of the second or receptive division.

我们能够提供什么样令大多数的市民都接受和理解的休闲的场所，既满足功能要求，又可以随着时间的推移，让那些特意前来的市民获得与沉闷的城市环境完全相反的感受？在这个问题的讨论上，所有的休闲的形式都将首先被划分为这样两个类型。例如象棋这样主要靠头脑的游戏还有棒球这样的体育运动，都属于第一种休闲形式，或者我们可以称之为主动休闲。而象音乐和美术则是第二类，被动的休闲。

There is an instinctive inclination to this social, neighborly, unexertive form of recreation among all of us. In one way or another it is sure to be constantly operating upon those millions on millions of men and women who are to pass their lives within a few miles of where we now stand. To what extent it shall operate so as to develop health and virtue will, on many occasions, be simply a question of opportunity and inducement. And this question is one for the determination of which for a thousand years we here today are largely responsible.

我们都对于这种社交的，邻里的，轻松的休闲方式有一种本能的喜好。这样的或其他的原因可以使我们确信，由于众多的人们都生活在离我们此时所站之处几英里范围之内，这种行为将会一直持续下去。而它将持续到什么样的程度，以至于可以促进人们的身心健康，在很多因素下将仅仅是个简单的归结于机遇与动机的问题。我们在此所负担的这个问题也正是一千年来人们追求的目标。

For this purpose neither of the forms of ground we have heretofore considered are at all suitable. We want a ground to which people may easily go after their day’s work is done, and where they may stroll for an hour, seeing, hearing, and feeling nothing of the bustle and jar of the streets—where they shall, in effect, find the city put far away from them. We want the greatest possible contrast with the streets and the shops and the rooms of the town which will be consistent with convenience and the preservation of good order and neatness. We want, especially, the greatest possible contrast with the restraining and confining conditions of the town, those conditions which compel us to walk circumspectly, watchfully, jealously, which compel us to look closely upon others without sympathy. Practically, what we most want is a simple, broad, open space of clean greensward, with sufficient play of surface and a sufficient number of trees about it to supply a variety of light and shade. This we want as a central feature. We want depth of wood enough about it not only for comfort in hot weather but to completely shut out the city from our landscapes.

由此看来，迄今为止我们所考虑过的所有土地形式都不是合宜的。我们需要的是这样一个场所，人们在结束了一天的劳作之后可以轻松到达，他们可在其中悠闲漫步，感受不到街道的喧嚣和拥挤，实际上就是令他们获得远离城市的感受。当人们在一个拘束的城市空间中，被迫谨慎警惕的行走，漠然的面对其他路人，我们将对与其形成鲜明对比的和谐舒适的环境怀有更强的渴望，在那里人们可以无拘无束的逛街、购物或仅仅待在家中。实际上，我们所需要的仅仅是一块宽阔的开放的空间，那里有干净的绿草地，足够游戏的场地以及足够的能够提供各种光影的林地。这是我们需要的核心的特征。我们需要足够密的树林，不仅仅是为了夏日的荫凉，更主要的是要将自然与城市完全隔离。

The word “park,” in town nomenclature, should, I think, be reserved for grounds of the character and purpose thus described.

我认为，在城市的术语中，“公园”这个词应该被确定为具有上述特征和用途的场所。

Not only as being the most valuable of all possible forms of public places but regarded simply as a large space which will seriously interrupt crosstown communication wherever it occurs, the question of the site and bounds of the park requires to be determined with much more deliberation and art than is often secured for any problem of distant and extended municipal interests. The park should, as far as possible, complement the town.

不仅仅是作为公共用地中最有价值的形式，而且当公园不恰当存在时还容易被公众简单的理解为巨大的严重干扰城市内部交流的地块，这就使得缜密及艺术性的考虑公园的位置和范围显得更加重要，而不是只满足于以往的将其作为城市边缘及或扩展的定位。公园，应该在最大的可能性上弥补城市的不足。

Openness is the one thing you cannot get in buildings. Picturesqueness you can get. Let your buildings be as picturesque as your artists can make them. This is the beauty of a town. Consequently, the beauty of the park should be the other. It should be the beauty of the fields, the meadow, the prairie, of the green pastures, and the still waters. What we want to gain is tranquility and rest to the mind. Mountains suggest effort. But besides this objection there are others of what I may indicate as the housekeeping class. It is impossible to give the public range over a large extent of ground of a highly picturesque character, unless under very exceptional circumstances, and sufficiently guard against the occurrence of opportunities and temptations to shabbiness, disorder, indecorum, and indecency that will be subversive of every good purpose the park should be designed to fulfill.

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