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.

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.

Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994) remains one of the most important landscape architects in the history of the field. His distinctive and widely acclaimed work has been featured and referenced in numerous sources, yet few of Burle Marx's own words have been published. This collection of a dozen of Burle Marx's lectures, most of which have never before been available in English, fills that void. Delivered on international speaking tours, they address topics such as Concepts in Landscape Composition, Gardens and Ecology, and The Problem of Garden Lighting. Their publi- cation sheds light on Burle Marx's distinctive ethic and aesthetic of landscape, as "the real art of living." The lectures paint a picture of Burle Marx not just as a gardener, artist, and botanist, but as a land- scape architect whose ambition was to bring radical change to cities and society. The lectures are framed by photographs, by Leonardo Finotti, of a selection of Burle Marx's realized projects.

This innovative multidisciplinary study considers the concept of green from multiple perspectives-aesthetic, architectural, environmental, political, and social-in the Kingdom of Bahrain, where green has a long and deep history of appearing cooling, productive, and prosperous-a radical contrast to the hot and hostile desert. Although green is often celebrated in cities as a counter to gray urban environments, green has not always been good for cities. Similarly, manifestation of the color green in arid urban environments is often in direct conflict with the practice of green from an environmental point of view. This paradox is at the heart of the book. In arid environments such as Bahrain, the contradiction becomes extreme and even unsustainable. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, Gareth Doherty explores the landscapes of Bahrain, where green represents a plethora of implicit human values and exists in dialectical tension with other culturally and environmentally significant colors and hues. Explicit in his book is the argument that concepts of color and object are mutually defining and thus a discussion about green becomes a discussion about the creation of space and place.

In the last few years, the Persian Gulf city of Dubai has exploded from the Arabian sands onto the world stage. Oil wealth, land rent, and so-called informal economic practices have blanketed the urbanscape with enormous enclaved developments attracting a global elite, while the economy runs on a huge army of migrant workers from the labor-exporting countries of the Indian Ocean and Eurasian regions. The speed and aesthetic brashness with which the city has developed have left both scholarly and journalistic observers baffled and reaching for facile stereotypes with which to capture its city's identity and significance to the history of urban planning, architecture, social theory, and capitalism.

In "The Superlative City," contributors from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and colleagues from the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and Denmark offer the most serious analyses of the city to appear to date. Remarkable aspects of Dubai, such as the size and theming of real estate projects and the speed of urbanization, are situated in their local and global architectural, political, and economic contexts. Planning tactics and strategies are explained. The visually arresting aspects of architecture are critiqued but also placed within a holistic view of the city that takes in the less sensational elements, such as worker camps and informal urban spaces.

Color is a ubiquitous yet essential part of the city, creating and shaping urban form. Who can forget the whites of modernist Brasilia? The greens of historic Cairo? The rosy reds of Petra? The terracottas of South America s shantytowns? The color cacophonies of Times Square and Shinjuku? Colors have a presence over and beyond the objects buildings, spaces, billboards, artifacts, and people that make up the city. Not only does color give meaning to cities, cities give meaning to color. Whether carefully coordinated, clashing, or an expression of materials, color is a powerful cultural, economic, and political force in cities. Yet discussions on the city do not usually focus much on color, perhaps because urban colors are too often understood as being beyond any one authority or taste, or are simply dismissed as cosmetic, naive, or intangible. Volume 3 of "New Geographies" brings together artists and designers, anthropologists, geographers, historians, and philosophers with the aim of challenging the status quo and exploring the potency, the interaction, and the neglected design possibilities of color at the scale of the city.