Edward Clark Whiting

Edward Clark Whiting

Quick Facts

Significance:

Partner in Olmsted Firm

Place of Birth:

New York City, NH

Date of Birth:

August 8, 1881

Place of Death:

Quincy, MA

Date of Death:

April 18, 1962

Notable Projects while at the Olmsted Firm:
Rock Creek Park, Washington D.C. and Maryland
Hartford Arboretum, Hartford, Connecticut
H.A. Sherwin Estate, Willoughby, Ohio
E.K. Davis Estate and Seapuit Community, Marstons Mills, Massachusetts
Khakum Wood Subdivision, Greenwich, Connecticut
Guilford Park Subdivision, Baltimore, Maryland
 

Edward Clark Whiting was one of a few men who spent his almost entire landscape architecture career with the Olmsted firm. Whiting joined the Olmsted firm in 1905, after receiving his graduate degree in landscape architecture from Harvard. He served as a landscape architect for the U.S. government during World War I, and returned to the firm and became a partner in 1920.  With good skills in analysis, planning and design, he produced throughout his career an extensive and diverse range of projects for the Olmsted Brothers firm. He assisted Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. in his 1910 planning work in Pittsburgh and in Washington, DC and he trained with Percival Gallagher on varied estates.

 

He combined these experiences as he became a prolific designer of residential landscapes and communities, from elite estates and communities to public housing projects such as that for Cambridge, Massachusetts in the 1940s. Additionally, he designed cemeteries for Attleboro, Massachusetts and Torrington, Connecticut. An articulate writer, Whiting expressed his belief in Frederick Law Olmsted’s philosophy that park planning should serve the public need while preserving natural scenery.

 

He also wrote that landscape design should follow the traditional tenets of fine art: unity, balance, harmony and rhythm. Whiting was active in the American Society of Landscape Architects becoming a Fellow in 1930, and served in various roles for the Boston Society of Landscape Architects. A highly productive landscape architect throughout his career, Whiting remained an active partner in Olmsted Associates until his death in 1962.