Ignatz Anton Pilát

Male, Deceased Person

1820 – 1870

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Who was Ignatz Anton Pilát?

Ignatz Anton Pilát was an Austrian-born gardener who migrated to the United States to work on the design and planting of New York's Central Park.

Pilát was born on June 27, 1820 in St. Agatha, Upper Austria. After studying botany at the University of Vienna, he obtained a position at the Imperial Botanical Gardens of the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, where he acquired technical skills and participated in a botanical survey of the site. Later he was a gardener in Venice, which he fled during the political troubles of 1848.

Pilát submitted an unofficial entry to the competition for design of Central Park. This gained him the attention of Frederick Law Olmsted, who called him to New York as foreman of the gardeners. In 1863, this industrious and modest man rose to be Chief Gardener and Superintendent of the park, a position he retained for the rest of his life.

Although the overall plans of Central Park were prepared by the architects, Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, credit has been given to Ignatz Pilát for the choice of plants, their distribution, and the detailed landscaping of the park. The much admired landscaped vistas owed their design to his knowledge and use of a wide variety of plants. Pilát’s characteristic style is found in many areas of the park.

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Born
Jun 27, 1820
Sankt Agatha
Nationality
  • Austria
Died
Sep 17, 1870
New York City

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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