Calvert Vaux (December 20, 1824 – November 19, 1895), was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer (with Frederick Law Olmsted), of New York's Central Park. Little is known about Vaux's childhood and upbringing.

He was born in London in 1824, and his father was a doctor. Due to this social standing, his father was able to provide a comfortable income for his family. Vaux (rhymes with hawks) attended a private primary school until the age of nine.

He then trained as an apprentice under London architect Lewis Nockalls Cottingham. Cottingham was a leader of the Gothic Revival movement. He trained Vaux until the age of twenty-six, and as a result, Vaux became a very skilled draftsman.

In 1850, Vaux exhibited in London a collection of landscape watercolors made on a tour to the Continent, and it was this gallery that captured the attention of the American landscape designer and writer Andrew Jackson Downing. Downing had traveled to London in search of an architect that would complement his vision of what a landscape should be. Downing believed that architecture should be visually integrated into the surrounding landscape, and he wanted to work with someone who had as deep an appreciation of art as he did.

Vaux readily accepted the job and moved to the United States.

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