Is Landscape... ? Essays on the Identity of Landscape

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.

Foreword Mostafavi, Mohsen Introduction Doherty and Waldheim Is Landscape Literature? Doherty, Gareth Is Landscape Painting? Di Palma, Vittoria Is Landscape Photography? Kelsey, Robin Is Landscape Ecology? Lister, Nina-Marie Is Landscape Gardening? Weilacher, Udo Is Landscape Planning? Steiner, Frederick Is Landscape Urbanism? Waldheim, Charles Is Landscape Infrastructure? Bélanger, Pierre Is Landscape Technology? Kirkwood, Niall Is Landscape History? Hunt, John Dixon Is Landscape Theory? DeLue, Rachael Z. Is Landscape Philosophy? Moore, Kathryn Is Landscape Life? Ward Thompson, Catharine Is Landscape a Discipline? Berrizbeitia, Anita Is Landscape a Profession? Spirn, Anne Whiston Is Landscape Architecture? Eckbo Is Landscape Architecture? Leatherbarrow, David

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 Theoryas 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.