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.

Courses

• ​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

Recent News

• 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)