Last updated: July 13, 2023
Person
Henry Sargent Codman
Quick Facts
Significance:
Apprentice and Partner in Olmsted Firm
Place of Birth:
Brookline, MA
Date of Birth:
June 19 1864
Place of Death:
Chicago, IL
Date of Death:
January 13 1893
Place of Burial:
Jamaica Plain, MA
Cemetery Name:
Forest Hills Cemetery and Crematory
Positions and Years at Firm: Apprentice: 1884-1887, Partner: 1889-1893
Notable Projects while at the Olmsted Firm:
World's Columbian Exhibition, Chicago, IL
Buffalo Parks, Buffalo, NY
Biltmore Estate, Asheville, NC
Lake Wauconda, Perry Park, CO
Even before becoming Olmsted's second apprentice (after Charles Eliot), Henry Sargent "Harry" Codman, had developed solid roots in the business of landscape architecture. His uncle, Charles Sprague Sargent, was the founding director of the Arnold Arboretum in Boston and was the editor of the influential magazine, "Garden and Forest." A gradute of MIT, he apprenticed for a few years with the Olmsted firm before touring with his uncle through Europe, keeping copious notes about whom and what he saw. Codman stayed on in Europe and studied landscape architecture with Edouard Andre, France's premier landscape architect. He would write a number of articles about his time on the continent, which he hoped would advance the nascent profession of landscape architecture in the United States. In 1889, he returned to the Olmsted firm as a partner. Working with Olmsted Sr., he became the Olmsted firm's main representative on the design and construction supervision of the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. Here he would work alongside the country's most famous architects and artists. Tragically, while recovering from an appendectomy, he died suddenly on January 13, 1893. The chief of construction of the World's Fair, Daniel Burnham, said of Codman, "Harry Codman's knowledge of formal settings was greater than that of all the others out together...he never failed."