Anita de la Rosa Berrizbeitia (born 1957) is a

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

theorist, teacher, and author. She continues to play an integral role in the renewed visibility of

landscape architecture Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...

as a cultural practice. She is currently Professor of Landscape Architecture at the

Harvard Graduate School of Design The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is the graduate school of design at Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It offers master's and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urban ...

and chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture. Appointed in 2015, she is the 14th Chair of the oldest landscape architecture department in the world and only the second female to hold the position. Prior to coming to

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

she was the associate chair of landscape architecture at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

Early life and education

Anita Berrizbeitia was born in

Caracas, Venezuela Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the ...

. She attended the College of Architecture and Urbanism at Simon Bolivar University in Caracas, a public institution known for its science and technology orientation. In 1980, she received a B.A. from

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...

, and in 1987 earned an M.L.A. from the Graduate School of Design at

Career

Berrizbeitia contributed to several award-winning projects while practicing as a landscape architect with Childs Associates, Inc., in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, from 1987 to 1993. Large scale projects in which she participated include North Link Park in

Battery Park City Battery Park City is a mainly residential planned community and neighborhood on the west side of the southern tip of the island of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by the Hudson River on the west, the Hudson River shoreline on the north ...

and D.W. Field Park in

Brockton, Massachusetts Brockton is a city in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States; the population is 105,643 as of the 2020 United States Census. Along with Plymouth, Massachusetts, Plymouth, it is one of the two county seats of ...

. It is for her contributions to design theories of the modern and contemporary landscape, however, for which she is most recognized. Teaching has been an integral component to the development of her ideas, beginning with an Assistant Professorship of Landscape Architecture at Harvard (1993–98) and continuing as faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, which she joined in 1998 until 2010. In 2005, she was awarded the

Rome Prize The Rome Prize is awarded by the American Academy in Rome, in Rome, Italy. Approximately thirty scholars and artists are selected each year to receive a study fellowship at the academy. Prizes have been awarded annually since 1921, with a hiatus ...

. Berrizbeitia currently is Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and as of July 2015, Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture. Prior to her appointment at Harvard she was Associate Department Chair of Landscape Architecture and an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Works

In 1999, with co-author Linda Pollak, Berrizbeitia published ''Inside/Outside: Between Architecture and Landscape''. Organized as an anthology of twenty four design projects from seven countries, the book distinguished itself from other anthologies of the period by formulating a theory of relationships around the concept of design operations, such as reciprocity and insertion, rather than a formal description of design elements. The book was widely praised and is firmly situated in design libraries and on the reading lists of advanced courses in design studies. Berrizbeitia followed with ''Roberto Burle Marx in Caracas: Parque del Este'', 1956-1961 (2004), which was awarded the J.B. Jackson Book Prize in 2007 from the Foundation for Landscape Studies, a prize that recognizes significant contributions to garden history and landscape studies. The book furthers her studies in inter-relationships by examining the Latin American Modernist context of

Burle Marx Roberto Burle Marx (August 4, 1909 – June 4, 1994) was a Brazilian landscape architect (as well as a painter, print maker, ecologist, naturalist, artist and musician) whose designs of parks and gardens made him world-famous. He is accredite ...

that is noteworthy for its embrace of hybridity. Her study reveals several forms of hybridity including Formal (combining types), Ecological (native/non-native)and Methodological (process/form) in Burle Marx's Parque del Este that hold particular relevance to contemporary practice in North America. In addition to her two books, Berrizbeitia has also contributed essays to numerous studies in modern and contemporary design including ''Daniel Urban Kiley: The Early Gardens'', ''Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture'', ''Roberto Burle Marx: Landscapes Reflected'', ''CASE:Downsview Park Toronto'', and ''Large Parks''. In 2005, Berrizbeitia was awarded the Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture to study “The Ecology of Formal Systems in the Italian Landscape and Garden.” Most recently, she is the editor of ''Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates: Reconstructing Urban Landscapes''. and of ''Urban Landscapes''. from the series ''Critical Concepts in Built Environment''. She is currently overseeing a three-year partnership between Maja Hoffman's

LUMA Foundation LUMA Foundation is a nonprofit organization established in 2004 that is based out of Zurich, Switzerland. It supports the activities of independent contemporary artists and other pioneers working in the fields of art, photography, publishing, docu ...

Arles, France Arles (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Arle ; Classical la, Arelate) is a coastal city and commune in the South of France, a subprefecture in the Bouches-du-Rhône department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in the former province of ...

and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, with studios and seminars addressing various urban or territorial challenges facing Arles and its surrounding region. In 2020, together with Gunther Vogt, Berrizbeitia co-curated "First the Forests," a GSD exhibit which documented six projects in the manner of a Wunderkammer.

Selected published work

* Berrizbeitia, Anita. ''Roberto Burle Marx in Caracas : Parque Del Este, 1956-1961''. Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. * Berrizbeitia, Anita, and Linda. Pollak. ''Inside outside : Between Architecture and Landscape''. Gloucester, Mass. : London: Rockport ; Hi Marketing, 1999. * Berrizbeitia, Anita, Felipe. Correa, Rafi. Segal, Carlos. Garciavelez Alfaro, Mariusz. Klemens, and Harvard University. Graduate School of Design. ''QNS : Elements of Urban Design 2010 : Queens''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, the Graduate School of Design, 2013. * Berrizbeitia, Anita. "Between Deep and Ephemeral Time: Representations of Geology and Temporality in Charles Eliot's Metropolitan Park System, Boston (1892-1893)." Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes 34, no. 1 (2014): 38–51. * Berrizbeitia, Anita. ''Urban Landscape''. Critical Concepts in Built Environment. London ; New York: Routledge, 2015. * Berrizbeitia, Anita, "Scales of Undecidability." Czerniak, Julia. CASE: Downsview Park Toronto. CASE Series (Prestel Verlag). Munich ; New York : Cambridge, Mass.: Prestel ; Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, 2001, 116–125.

Personal life

She lives in

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

with her husband and three sons.

References