Is Landscape . . . ? surveys multiple and myriad definitions of landscape. Rather than seeking a singular or essential understanding of the term, the collection postulates that landscape might be better read in relation to its cognate terms across expanded disciplinary and professional fields. The publication pursues the potential of multiple provisional working definitions of landscape to both disturb and develop received understandings of landscape architecture. These definitions distinguish between landscape as representational medium, academic discipline, and professional identity. Beginning with an inquiry into the origins of the term itself, Is Landscape . . . .? features essays by a dozen leading voices shaping the contemporary reading of landscape as architecture and beyond.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: What is landscape? Gareth Doherty and Charles Waldheim, 1. Is landscape architecture? Garrett Eckbo 2. Is landscape literature? Gareth Doherty, 3. Is landscape painting? Vittoria Di Palma, 4. Is landscape photography? Robin Kelsey, 5. Is landscape gardening? Udo Weilacher, 6. Is landscape ecology? Nina-Marie Lister, 7. Is landscape planning? Frederick Steiner, 8. Is landscape urbanism? Charles Waldheim, Is landscape infrastructure? Pierre Bélanger, 9. Is landscape technology? Niall Kirkwood, 10. Is landscape history? John Dixon Hunt, 11. Is landscape theory? Rachael Z. DeLue, 12. Is landscape philosophy? Kathryn Moore, 13. Is landscape life? Catharine Ward Thompson, 14. Is landscape architecture? David Leatherbarrow
About the Author :
Gareth Doherty is Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Senior Research Associate at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. His research and teaching focus on the interactions between design and anthropology. Doherty is a founding editor of New Geographies journal and editor-in-chief of New Geographies 3: Urbanisms of Color. Doherty edited Ecological Urbanism with Mohsen Mostafavi. Current book projects include, Paradoxes of Green: An Ethnography of Landscape in a City-State and Landscape as Art and Ecology: Lectures by Roberto Burle Marx.
Charles Waldheim is John E. Irving Professor of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Professor Waldheim’s research focuses on landscape architecture in relation to contemporary urbanism. He coined the term landscape urbanism to describe emerging landscape design practices in the context of North American urbanism. He has written extensively on the topic and is author of Landscape as Urbanism: A General Theory as well as editor of The Landscape Urbanism Reader. Citing the city of Detroit as the most legible example of urban industrial economy in North America, Waldheim is editor of CASE: Lafayette Park Detroit and co-editor, with Jason Young and Georgia Daskalakis, of Stalking Detroit.
Review :
"A series of rhetorical questions asked by well- known authors describe the relationship between landscape architecture and its closely related disciplines and other cultural fields." – Peter Zöch, Topos
"As richly illustrated and annotated volume, Is Landscape…? is of significant value to students and researchers who wish to dig deeper, and for those leading topical seminars on any of the covered subjects." – Sarah Cowles, Landscape Architecture Magazine
"Is Landscape…? Presents both a documentation and projection of Gareth Doherty and Charles Waldheim’s proseminar at the Harvard Graduate School of Design that explores questions of landscape identity." - Karl Kullman, JAE Online
