ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book considers how landscape architecture and landscape architects are shaped by the heterogeneous and composite values and knowledge forms involved in landscape architecture as a profession. It provides a diverse yet catalysing framework for outlining, deepening and reflecting on central aspects of landscape architecture. The book focuses on the ways of seeing, mapping and knowing landscape presented in the modern ideas of planetary and moving landscapes formulated by the German philosopher, scientist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt at the turn of the nineteenth century. It also provides a historical perspective on the ways modern ideas of ‘landscape’ are conceived and landscape architecture is practised. The book deals with cultural, philosophical, ecological and design-related consequences of the perceived nature/culture divide, how that divide developed within—or against—a post-Romantic vocabulary, and how we might nuance or even overcome such dualistic thinking.
