The lesson that I would like to draw from this sequence is as follows: If you don’t like the rules as they apply to your art, then break the rules. This won’t always work out in your favor, as it also requires a degree of perspicacity on the part of the adjudicators; but if they are able, as Olmsted’s and Vaux’s were, to look at the broken rules and say, “Oh, this is better. Why did we make that dumb rule?,” then taste and good design can win the day.
