Olmsted expert has mixed feelings about synthetic turf

In a lecture last week to members of les Amis de la Montagne, a group dedicated to the preservation of one of Olmsted's many projects, Mount Royal Park, Dr. Charles E. Beveridge, a University of Wisconsin historian who has researched Olmsted more than 35 years, suggested the fundamental principles of Olmsted's vision should be respected.

According to the late Westmount historian and Examiner columnist Aline Gubbay's 1979 book 'Montreal's Little Mountain,' co-written with Sally Hooff, Olmsted — who is best known for planning New York City's Central Park — offered to help design Westmount's upper level when he was in Montreal to landscape Mount Royal as a recreational site.

"For some reason Olmsted's services were not called upon, but the power of his ideas remained," Gubbay wrote. The first land acquisitions for what would be Westmount Park were made in 1892. Landscaping in the 1920s, which saw the creation of paths, flower beds, ponds and slopes, was reportedly done in the spirit of Olmsted.

Summing up Olmsted's work on Mount Royal Park, Dr. Beveridge said, "I just would urge you from time to time to look at Olmsted's description and his report and consider what it is that he is talking about … and give careful consideration to whether some of that cannot still be used."

During an interview with the Examiner, Dr. Beveridge was asked how well artificial turf fits in with Olmsted's vision, which emphasized natural landscaping. He said Olmsted dealt with the problem of certain areas in his parks being overused by paving them over so they could withstand heavy use. But he also suggested that those responsible for maintaining Olmsted's parks today are usually trying to upkeep the natural grass.

"It's a question of how it would be more functional if you use the artificial turf," he said. "Thus far I've only seen people trying to find various alternatives for making real grass function. That would be the desirable first approach." However, he conceded, this "does not apply to sports facilities and venues where the artificial grass, as I understand, is becoming very successful."

Regarding Mount Royal Park, Beveridge said Olmsted's intention was that "other things that made it less of a mountain and made the experience less unified should be put somewhere else. And otherwise, what you find is that your green space disappears, your mountain in a way disappears. So that the whole principle of parks systems is that you have different areas (for) different functions, and particularly that you try to avoid heavy sports use in an area designed and used for some other purpose."