Ethan Carr

Ethan Carr, PhD, FASLA, is a professor of landscape architecture and the director of the Master’s of Landscape Architecture program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is a landscape historian and preservationist specializing in public landscapes. Three of his award-winning books, Wilderness by Design (1998), Mission 66: Modernism and the National Park Dilemma (2007), and The Greatest Beach, a History of the Cape Cod National Seashore (2019) describe the twentieth-century history of planning and design in the U.S. national park system as a context for considering its future. Carr was the lead editor for The Early Boston Years, 1882-1890, Volume 8 of the Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted (2013). Olmsted and Yosemite: Civil War, Abolition, and the National Park Idea (2022) and was co-written with Rolf Diamant and traces the origins of the American park movement. His latest book, Boston’s Franklin Park: Olmsted, Recreation, and the Modern City (2023) reconsiders the history of this landmark urban park. Carr consults with landscape architecture firms developing plans and designs for historic parks of all types.

​LANDARCH  494LI - Landscape Planning & the Cultural Landscape
LANDARCH/SUSTCOMM  544 - Hist Arch & Ldscp II
LANDARCH 593T:  Case Study in Landscape Architecture: Contemporary Theory and Practice
LANDARCH  603 - Studio VI Cultural Landscape

Professor Carr's latest book "The Greatest Beach: A History of the Cape Cod National Seashore" is published in June 2019. Listen to his interview about the book here.
Professor Ethan Carr is quoted in the New York Times Article "Far From the Great Lawn, Saving a Home Tied to Central Park" (February 11, 2018)
Central Park, Bucolic but Aging, Is in a Quest for $300 Million - New York Times (July 13,2016)