Bremer Whidden Pond

Bremer Whidden Pond

Quick Facts

Significance:

Landscape Architect at Olmsted Firm

Place of Birth:

Boston, MA

Date of Birth:

June 23, 1884

Place of Death:

Hanover, NH

Date of Death:

September 2, 1959

Notable Projects while at Olmsted Firm:
S.M. Merrill, Gloucester, Massachusetts
Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts
Forest Hills Garden, Forest Hills, New York
Washington Square, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
St. Francis Wood Community, San Francisco, California
 

Pond received a master’s degree in landscape architecture from Harvard in 1911, and then accepted a three-year position as “secretary” to Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. before forming his own practice. At the Olmsted Brothers (1911-1914), he drafted plans for diverse projects and handled project correspondence. He joined the faculty of the Harvard Landscape Architecture Program in 1914, where he would remain until 1950, becoming the Charles Eliot Professor in 1930, the chairman of the Council of the School of Landscape Architecture (1928-1936), and Chairman of the Department of Landscape Architecture (1938-1950). These were years of great change at Harvard as the Olmsted-trained faculty was gradually diversified with teachers from other areas.  The 1930s saw a merger of the landscape architecture, architecture, and city planning programs into a new Graduate School of Design with an evolution away from traditional “classic” instruction.

 

In 1915, reflective of his interest in broader social issues and responding to the encouragement of James Sturgis Pray, Pond inaugurated with Harvard colleague Henry A. Frost what was to become the Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture where women could receive professional training. He taught there until women were admitted to the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1942. A well-liked teacher, Pond was also active in the American Society of Landscape Architects, becoming a Fellow in 1921.