Landscape Information
Designed by Olmsted, Vaux & Co. in 1871 as part of the 1,055-acre South Park system, this 593-acre park is connected to Washington Park via a mile-long boulevard, the Midway Plaisance. Conceived as an escape from urban strains, the swampy land adjacent to Lake Michigan was transformed into a Picturesque setting in which water figured as the primary element. Olmsted and Vaux envisioned an interconnected system of waterways, lushly planted and accessible from the lake. In the original design, entrance via steamboat from Lake Michigan was envisioned as the primary approach. Originally called Lake Park, it was later named for former president Andrew Jackson.
In 1893 Jackson Park became the site for the World’s Columbian Exposition. A “White City” of neoclassical structures, planned by architect Daniel H. Burnham and Olmsted, Sr., with associate landscape architect Henry Sargent Codman, was built as a system of lagoons with a formal Court of Honor. After the Exposition, the site reverted to parkland designed by Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot. Additions to this plan include the first public golf course west of the Allegheny Mountains in 1899; the expansion of lakefront beaches in the 1900s; and, in 1935, on the park's Wooded Island, a Japanese garden (now Osaka Garden)
In 2016 Heritage Landscapes prepared a framework plan that led to the restoration of the lagoon’s ecology and renewal of Olmsted’s design intent which introduced a Great Lawn and Music Court. Five years later, approximately nineteen acres of parkland were appropriated for the Obama Presidential Center designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects and Michael van Valkenburgh Associates, working with Site Design Group and Living Habitats.
Jackson Park was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. It is a contributing feature of the Historic Resources of the Chicago Park District listed in 1990 and the Chicago Park Boulevard System Historic District listed in 2018.
