Arthur Asahel Shurcliff

Arthur Asahel Shurcliff

Quick Facts

Significance:

Landscape Architect in Olmsted Firm

Place of Birth:

Boston, MA

Date of Birth:

September 12, 1870

Place of Death:

Boston, MA

Date of Death:

November 12, 1957

Place of Burial:

Cambridge, MA

Cemetery Name:

Mount Auburn Cemetery

Notable Projects while at the Olmsted Firm: 
Metropolitan Park System, Boston, Massachusetts
Town Common, Newburyport, Massachusetts
Town Common, Weston, Massachusetts
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Arthur Shurcliff spent eight years (1896-1904) with the Olmsted firm, initially being mentored by Charles Eliot before the latter’s untimely death. Some of his important work there involved completing work on the Boston Metropolitan Park System begun by Eliot. He helped Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. found the nation’s first landscape architecture degree program at Harvard, beginning in 1900. When Shurcliff left the Olmsted firm to start his own practice in 1904, he spent several decades as consulting landscape architect for the Boston Park Commission and chief landscape architect for the Metropolitan District Commission supervising development in the metropolitan reservations.

His work for these agencies included designs for the original Franklin Park Zoo (1912), the Paul Revere Mall in Boston’s North End (1935), the Charles River Esplanade (1930s and 1940s) as well as a redesign of sections of the Back Bay Fens (late 1920s). His practice included preparing town planning reports for municipalities and designing planned communities, such as that for Fort Wayne, Indiana and for Oak Hill Village in Newton, Massachusetts. In addition, he designed sections of school campuses In New England such as Amherst College, St. Paul’s School, and Brown University. Shurcliff is best known for his largest overall project, a restoration of the settings and landscape of Colonial Williamsburg (1928-1941).