Jacob Weidenmann

Landscape architect Jacob Weidenmann was born in Winterthur, Switzerland in 1829. He was educated as an engineer and architect at the prestigious Academy of Fine Arts (Akademie der bildenden Kunst) in Vienna, Austria. He worked in Munich, Paris, London, New York, Panama and Peru as a young man before settling in the United States in 1856.

He came to Hartford as the first superintendent of parks to take part in the design of Bushnell Park, America’s first public park. He did many designs in the area including Cedar Hill Cemetery, the first campus of the Hartford School for the Deaf and the Institute for Living. In 1872 he joined Hartford native Frederick Law Olmsted as a collaborator on the Washington D.C. Capitol grounds and Mount Royal Park in Montreal.