Women, Leadership, and Histories of Landscape Architecture

Professor Thaisa Way will present and engage in a conversation with colleagues and the audience about women, leadership, and histories of landscape architecture. The event will be preceded at 5:00pm by a presentation by professor Way about opportunities for students and scholars at Dumbarton Oaks. 

Registration link: https://forms.office.com/r/KMQs9yPzky

Speakers: Thaisa Way, Director of the Dumbarton Oaks Garden & Landscape Studies, Harvard University. 

Respondent: María Bellalta, Head of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, North Carolina State University. Romy Hecht, Dean of College UC , Universidad Católica de Chile.

Moderator: Alejandra Bosch, Head of Landscape and Architecture Master program , Universidad Católica de Chile. 

This event is co-sponsored by Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. 

Biographies

Thaisa Way is the Director of the Garden & Landscape Studies and Principal Investigator for the Mellon-funded Initiative, “Democracy and Landscape: Race, Identity, and Difference” at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, a Harvard University research institution located in Washington DC. She teaches at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University and is Professor Emerita at the College of Built Environments, University of Washington where she was also the founding Director of Urban@UW, an initiative to bring together over 400 scholars to advance knowledge of urban futures. As a landscape historian, Dr. Way was awarded the Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture at the American Academy in Rome in 2016 and as a Resident Scholar in 2023. Her multiple publications (including 6 books) foreground questions of history of the design professions and how gender and race have shaped our landscapes. She holds a PhD in Architectural History and Urbanism from Cornell University and a Master of Architectural History from the University of Virginia.

María Bellalta is professor and head of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning and director of global engagement for the College of Design at North Carolina State University. She teaches advanced interdisciplinary studios based in Colombia and Mexico City focused on urbanization of the Global South and its environmental and social impacts. Her publications (1 award-winning book and several journal articles) redefine spatial design frameworks to promote social and environmental equity.  Professor Bellalta is incoming director of education and academic affairs for the International Federation of Landscape Architects, Americas Region (IFLA AR), and a partner of Red Americana de Educación en Arquitectura del Paisaje (RAEAP), forging a network of academic resources for expanding landscape architecture education and practice in Latin America and the Caribbean. She holds a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, and a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Psychology from the University of Notre Dame. Bellalta is originally from Chile and has lived in the United States since 1976.  

Alejandra Bosch. UC Architect and Master of Arts from the Landscape Urbanism Program of the Architectural Association. Academic at the School of Architecture and head of the master's degree in Landscape Architecture UC. She has directed various workshops such as Archiprix in Chile. She has been a visiting professor at the Architectural Association in London, the Visiting School of the Architectural Association in Mexico and at Torcuato DiTella University in Argentina. Partner of the + Martic office where they develop architecture, urban design and public space projects, highlighting the restoration of the Las Majadas Park in Pirque, winners of the Nueva Alameda Providencia international competition, the landscape project for the International Antarctic Center and the landscape project for the Rio Ibanez Town Hall Building. Her projects have been published in Chile and abroad, including the 2010 Venice Biennale.

Romy Hecht. Architect and Master in Architecture, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (UC), PhD in History and Theory of Architecture, Princeton University, Full Professor at the UC School of Architecture and Dean of College UC. Along with her publications, courses and research, she has been involved in outreach and activism work to nurture and disseminate landscape studies in Latin America and, ultimately, root a landscape culture in Chile.  Her essays have been published in the books Retorno al paisaje (Evren, Spain, 2008), Arquitectura en el Chile del siglo XX (Ediciones ARQ, Chile, 2016), Ecological Urbanism in Latin America (Gustavo Gili, Spain, 2019), Paisaje no es naturaleza (Ediciones ARQ, 2020), De roca a parque (Ediciones ARQ, 2021), Paisaje como patrimonio (Undersecretary of Cultural Heritage, Chile, 2021), 30 trees and why architects love them (Birkhauser, Germany, 2023), Historia de la ciencia y tecnología en Chile (Editorial Universitaria, Chile, 2023) and in the magazines Harvard Design Magazine (USA), New Architecture (China), Studies in the Histories of Gardens and Designed Landscapes (United Kingdom), and ARQ, Revista CA, Revista 180 and Trace (Chile)