User:KXF/sandbox/KXF/sandbox/Ferruccio Vitale

Ferruccio Vitale

Landscape architect Ferruccio Vitale (1975-1933) is best known for developing the planting plan for Meridian Hill Park in Washington, D.C., in the early twentieth century. He completed town plans for Scarsdale and Pleasantville, New York, and the designs for gardens at many private estates. Vitale began his career as a military engineer, training at the Royal Military Academy in his native Italy, and he served as the Italian military attaché in Washington, D.C., in the late 1890s. He then turned to landscape architecture, which he studied in Italy and Paris from 1900 to 1904, working at his father's architectural firm in Florence during this period. In 1904 Vitale moved to New York and worked briefly at Parsons and Pentecost before establishing his own firm, Pentecost and Vitale, in 1905. He operated a firm under his own name or with partners for the next ten years, including Vitale, Brinkerhoff and Geiffert in 1917; the firm became Vitale and Geiffert in 1924 and continued under that name until Vitale's death in 1933. He was active in many professional organizations, serving as president of the New York chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects and as a member of the Foundation for Architecture and Landscape Architecture. He was a member of the Architectural Commission for Chicago's Century of Progress International Exposition and a trustee of the American Academy in Rome, founding the academy's department of landscape architecture. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Architectural League of New York in 1920 and the Order of the Crown of Italy. Vitale was a fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects, and a member of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts from 1927 to 1932.