Elizabeth Barlow Rogers
Monographs have been written about some of the individuals who created America 's glorious estate landscapes during the opulent period known as the country place era, but the collective story of these place-makers and their creations has not been told until now. Here at last is a book that treats eight important designers of the early twentieth century and seven extraordinary landscapes associated with them in a fluid, integrated narrative offering engaging biographical detail and insightful analysis.
James van Sweden
Following her brilliant first book, Fletcher Steele, Landscape Architect, Robin Karson now presents A Genius for Place, an equally important and valuable work. Here she presents early twentieth-century peers in context, and she brings life to distinguished American garden designs of the era. She also offers insight into the philosophy and practice of distinctive but long-overlooked designers. Not only is this work an important resource for today's practitioners, but its clear, concise, and poetic writing will preserve these valuable designs for posterity.
Charles E. Beveridge
The eight biographical studies are excellent summations of the careers of the designers, while the sections concerning the seven estates on which they worked give a vivid sense of the design process involved. The presentation is graceful, clear, and thoughtful.
Charles C. McLaughlin
What a feast Karson has spread before us!... The amalgam of people and places and their connections to each other make the book vastly interesting and lead us into novel insights on American society, cultural, intellectual, and even economic history.
Catherine Howett
At last, a thoroughly engaging study of the residential landscapes of America 's Country Place Era that sheds new light on four decades of lively, often passionately reformist philosophical and theoretical design discourse. This tour de force is accomplished by means of insightful analyses of the careers and masterworks of a well-chosen group of the period's most creative and influential landscape architects paired with their most ambitious and enabling clients. Karson is as fine a storyteller as she is a scholar. The book is richly illustrated with historic pictures and plans, as well as new photographs by Carol Betsch that extend the tradition of those early twentieth-century landscape and garden photographers whose documentary images proved to be exceptional works of art in their own right.
Robert A. M. Stern
A miracle of insight.
Witold Rybczynski
They're all here: Charles Platt, Beatrix Farrand, Jens Jensen. The great American country estates of 1900--1930 continue to be paragons of the art of garden design. Robin Karson's splendid new book discusses the important landscape architects of this period, and analyzes their important achievements.
Reuben M. Rainey
This is an outstanding book.... I regard it as the best work I have read on the Country Place Era. Its selection of case studies focuses on the best designs of the period by the most talented individuals.... The writing is lucid, engaging, and witty, and the book should appeal to professional designers, historians, and lay persons alike.
Mark Alan Hewitt
A major contribution to this long-neglected area of scholarship, Robin Karson's new book finally gives this extraordinary creative flowering its due.... This thoughtfully illustrated, authoritative text sets a high standard for other works to follow, and opens the door to a rich chapter in the history of American landscape architecture.
