A Modern Arcadia: Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and the Plan for Forest Hills Gardens
Klaus has produced an exemplary short architectural monograph; succinct, eloquent, contextual, and copiously illustrated...(Choice)Forest Hills Gardens has been little studied by modern historians. Everyone knows of it, but the details of its planning and development are not readily available. The scholarship in this work is exceptionally thorough, clearly the result of lengthy research. A Modern Arcadia will make a significant contribution to the fields of landscape and planning history.(Cynthia Zaitzevsky, author of Frederick Law Olmstedand the Boston Park System)Great book. It is the best of its genre. It showed me how little I actually knew about Forest Hills, even after having visited several times to admire the great urban detailing.(Andres Duany)A Modern Arcadia illuminates the fascinating intersection of social and aesthetic reform movements in the Progressive Era, as well as the early career of a prolific and influential planner and landscape architect.(David Glassberg, author of Sense of History: ThePlace of the Past in American Life)Forest Hills Gardens, a remarkable suburban enclave in New York City and one of the finest planned communities ever, finally receives the attention it deserves in Susan L. Klaus's carefully researched and fascinating account that also sheds light on the career of Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., too long in the shadow of his pioneering father.(Robert A. M. Stern, dean, Yale School of Architecture)Klaus, an independent scholar, has a strong feel for the period architecture and especially landscaping.(New York Times Book Review)