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.
Gareth Doherty is an assistant professor of landscape architecture and senior research associate at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he is also director of the Master in Landscape Architecture Program. He is author of
Paradoxes of Green: Landscapes of a City-State, published in 2017 by the University of California Press. Previous publications include,
Is Landscape...? Essays on the Identity of Landscape, edited with Charles Waldheim (Routledge, 2016); and
Ecological Urbanism, edited with Mohsen Mostafavi (Lars Müller Publishers, 2010, revised in 2016). Doherty is a founding editor of the New Geographies journal and editor in chief of New Geographies 3: Urbanisms of Color.
Leonardo Finotti is a Brazilian photographer with an international reputation. Whether the results of commissions or his personal initiatives, his photos are published all over the world. His visual research revolves around cities and architecture, with solo and group exhibitions and works shown in important public and private collections. He runs obra comunicacao, a collaborative communication office that produces articles, exhibitions, and catalogs. Previous publications include
Futebol (Lars Müller Publishers, 2014) and
A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture (Lars Müller Publishers, 2016).