Calvert Vaux
- A Chronology of Important Events in His Life
("Vaux" rhymes with "talks")
Olmsted & Vaux in Buffalo, NY



1824

Born in London, England

 

Apprenticed under London architect Lewis Nockalls Cottingham and joins firm at conclusion of apprenticeship

1850

Introduced to Andrew Jackson Downing, a well-known American designer and writer, who was an architect to join him in a design and architectural practice he was forming in Newburgh, New York.

1851

Partnered with Downing

1852

Downing was killed in a fire which destroyed a Hudson River steamboat

 

Vaux practices architecture in Newburgh for a total of 7 years, and then practices in New York City

1856

Married
Became U. S. citizen

1857

Published "Villas and Cottages," an influential pattern book.

1858

City of New York opened a contest to design a new park. Vaux offered to work with a then little known Frederick Law Olmsted, who was to be the Superintendent of the park. Eventually, their plan, entitled "Greensward," was chosen as the winner.

Much to chagrin of Vaux, the untrained Olmsted was subsequently named Architect-in-Chief of Central Park, while Vaux was his assistant, later being named Consulting Architect.

1858-1878

Vaux and Olmsted worked on the construction of the park 1858 to 1863,  and then again from 1865-1878

1865

Vaux commissioned to design Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Vaux and Olmsted form Olmsted, Vaux and Company

 

Olmsted, Vaux and Company designs first suburbs of Chicago, Riverside, Illinois, regarded as the country's first major suburban residential community.

1868

Olmsted, Vaux and Company designs a park system for Buffalo, NY.
It was the first plan for an interconnected park system to be implemented by an American city.

Vaux designs several structures for The Parade (now Martin Luther King, Jr. Park), The Park (Now Delaware Park), and The Front (now Front Park)

1871

Olmsted, Vaux and Company design grounds of New York State Hospital for the Insane in Buffalo, NY

1872

Olmsted, Vaux and Company dissolved

 

Vaux and architect George Kent Radford form a new firm

1880

Samuel Parsons, Jr. joins Vaux and Radford as an associate (and later partner)

Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mold design the first Metropolitan Museum of Art

1895

While visiting his son in Brooklyn, Vaux died of drowning

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