Imagining Uplands

Imagining Uplands recounts the efforts of the American landscape architect John Charles Olmsted to create an ideal and enduring subdivision on the suburban frontier of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Laid out at the height of the early-twentiety century real estate boom, Uplands was the first large-scale Canadian subdivision to break away entirely from the rigid geometry of the rectangular grid. Fashioned in the naturalistic or modern style, Uplands is marked by artistry and practicality. For John Olmsted personally, of all his subdivision projects, Uplands was “unquestionably the best adapted to obtain the greatest amount of landscape beauty in connection with suburban development.”

Imagining Uplands tells also of John Olmsted’s upbringing and training, and about other projects he initiated in Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest before World War I. Key chapters focus on his productive working relationship with the developer William Gardner of Winnipeg from 1907–1911 to make Uplands a masterpiece of residential design.

Among major themes woven into the narrative are the land dealings of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the corporate take-over of Gardner’s interests by the Paris-based Franco-Canadian Company, the chance making of Uplands Park, and ways in which Uplands has shaped Oak Bay’s politics, zoning, and middle-class identity.

Specially commissioned artwork, as well as over 150 historical and contemporary maps and photographs, are integrated closely with the text. These images capture the intrinsic beauty of the Garry oak landscape, the artistry of John Olmsted’s design, and the domestic architecture of “Victoria’s celebrated residential park.”