Diana Balmori Ling (June 4, 1932 – November 14, 2016) was 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 ...

and

urban design Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, cities, and regional spaces, urban de ...

er. She was the founder of the

landscape design Landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition, practiced by landscape designers, combining nature and culture. In contemporary practice, landscape design bridges the space between landscape architecture and garde ...

firm Balmori Associates.

Early life and education

Born in

Gijón Gijón () or () is a city and municipality in north-western Spain. It is the largest city and municipality by population in the autonomous community of Asturias. It is located on the coast of the Cantabrian Sea in the Bay of Biscay, in the cent ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

, Diana Balmori spent most of her childhood in

and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

before her family settled in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. Her mother Dorothy Ling (born in England) was a musician and musicologist. Her father Clemente Hernando Balmori (born in Spain) was a linguistic expert. At an early age Balmori learned to sing, dance, play piano, and her parents encouraged her to explore a wide range of mediums. She brought many of these influences with her into the design world. She graduated from

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

at the age of 16 and studied at the Architecture School at the

National University of Tucumán The National University of Tucumán ( es, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, UNT) is an Argentine national university located in Tucumán Province and the largest in Argentina's northwest region. Founded on 25 May 1914 in San Miguel de Tucumán ...

, in the

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-lev ...

program. It was there she met her future husband,

César Pelli César Pelli (October 12, 1926 – July 19, 2019) was an Argentine-American architect who designed some of the world's tallest buildings and other major urban landmarks. Two of his most notable buildings are the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur a ...

, and the two of them emigrated to the United States in 1952. Balmori continued her education at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

, earning her

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in urban history. Balmori and Pelli had two children: Denis, a neurobiologist and professor of psychology and neural science at New York University and Rafael Pelli, who went on to become a well-known architect at his father's firm, Cear Pelli Associates. The couple resided in an apartment in

the San Remo The San Remo is a cooperative apartment building at 145 and 146 Central Park West, between 74th and 75th Streets, adjacent to Central Park on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was constructed from 1929 to 1930 and was desi ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...

Career

After graduation, she moved to the East Coast to start her professional and academic work. Balmori accepted a teaching position at the State University of New York at Oswego and held undergraduate

seminars A seminar is a form of academic instruction, either at an academic institution or offered by a commercial or professional organization. It has the function of bringing together small groups for recurring meetings, focusing each time on some parti ...

in Landscape History at

Yale School of Architecture The Yale School of Architecture (YSOA) is one of the constituent professional schools of Yale University, and is generally considered to be one of the best architecture schools in the United States. The School awards the degrees of Master of Arc ...

. Balmori continued her own education, studying

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 ...

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

, until she was made partner at Cesar Pelli Associates, where she also founded their in-house Landscape Architecture department. She continued to work as a partner at CPA before leaving in 1990 to start her own firm, Balmori Associates. As the principal landscape designer at Balmori Associates, she was the lead on many innovative projects. She designed the Master Plan for the Abandiobarra District in

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, Spain, where her landscape designs run alongside the Nervion River and adjacent to the building of the Guggenheim Bilbao. She realized the concept of Robert Smithson for a

floating island A floating island is a mass of floating aquatic plants, mud, and peat ranging in thickness from several centimeters to a few meters. Floating islands are a common natural phenomenon that are found in many parts of the world. They exist less co ...

around New York City in 2005. Out of 36 submissions from 9 countries, Balmori Associates (New York) with StudioMDA, Knippers Helbig Inc., David Skelly, CITA, Bluegreen, John A. Martin & Associates, and David Langdon, was selected as one of five finalists in the ARC International Wildlife Crossing Infrastructure Design Competition, a competition sponsored by ARC Solutions, which challenged competitors to propose design concepts for a wildlife crossing over US Interstate 70 (I-70), near Denver, Colorado. Besides an extensive list of built works during her career, Balmori also influenced public and national policy on the built environment. Her positions included: a member of the Allston Development Group at Harvard University, a member of the Board of The Van Alen Institute, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation for the World Trade Center Site, and as a Committee Member for the Comprehensive Design Plan for the White House. Balmori was honored by institutions including the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Institute of Architects. In 2006, Balmori was appointed a Senior Fellow in Garden and Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC.; she served two terms on the

U.S. Commission of Fine Arts The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) is an independent agency of the federal government of the United States, and was established in 1910. The CFA has review (but not approval) authority over the "design and aesthetics" of all construction with ...

. Balmori held the Davenport Chair of Architectural Design for the Spring 2004 at the Yale School of Architecture and was the William Henry Bishop Visiting Professor of Architectural Design in the Fall 2008 at the Yale School of Architecture and she also taught in the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She was a member of the American Historical Association, and the American Society of Landscape Architects. She served as a Committee Member for the Comprehensive Design Landscape Plan for the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

in 1999. Balmori wrote on cities, environment, and the history of design. She linked her practice with foundations and academic institutions. She contributed to numerous publications, including coauthoring the books ''Beatrix Farrand'', ''American Landscapes: Garden and Campus Designs(1985)'', ''Redesigning the American Lawn (1993)'' and ''Groundwork: Between Landscape and Architecture (2011)''. In 2011 she was named a fellow of the American Society of American Landscape Architects. In 2014, Balmori's firm, Balmori Associates, moved into a new space in

Soho Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develop ...

, New York City. Balmori lived and worked in New York City. She died in her sleep on November 14, 2016, at the age of 84.

Style

Balmori's interest in landscape and

grew out of her interest in public space; the way it is used and designed, and its role and effect on the larger environment. Her design style is recognized by the way it creates a fluid interface between landscape and structure in the development of urban public spaces. The work explores how form can respond to a new understanding of nature – not simply as visual imitation – but contingent on an understanding of process. She was also an innovator in sustainable systems; one aspect of this is in the area of

green roofs A green roof or living roof is a roof of a building that is partially or completely covered with vegetation and a growing medium, planted over a waterproofing membrane. It may also include additional layers such as a root barrier and drainage ...

. Balmori called the huge expanse of urban

rooftop A roof ( : roofs or rooves) is the top covering of a building, including all materials and constructions necessary to support it on the walls of the building or on uprights, providing protection against rain, snow, sunlight, extremes of temper ...

s the "fifth façade.” Balmori frequently collaborated with artists and architects.

Notable works

* Smithson Floating Island, New York, NY, US (2005) with Robert Smithson * Abandiobarra Masterplan,

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, Spain (2012) * Masterplan for New Government City of

Sejong Sejong of Joseon (15 May 1397 – 8 April 1450), personal name Yi Do (Korean: 이도; Hanja: 李祹), widely known as Sejong the Great (Korean: 세종대왕; Hanja: 世宗大王), was the fourth ruler of the Joseon dynasty of Korea. Initial ...

, South Korea (2014) * GROWONUS, Brooklyn, NY, US (2015) *Battery Park City *Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport

Selected bibliography

* "Drawing and Reinventing Landscape": Wiley, (United Kingdom) 2014 * "A Landscape Manifesto": Yale University Press, (United States) 2010 * "Tra Fiume e Cittá Paesaggi, Progetti e Principi": Bollati Boringhieri, (Italy) 2009 * "Balmori": C3 Publications, (Korea) 2007 * "The Land and Natural Development (LAND) Code, Guidelines for Sustainable Land Development" co-authored with Gaboury Benoit: John Wiley and Sons Ltd. (United States) 2006 * "Mapping in The Age of Digital Media: The Yale Symposium" co-authored with M. Silver: John Wiley and Sons Ltd. (United Kingdom) 2003 * "Information Exchange: How Cities Renew, Rebuild and Remember" Interview with Joan Oakman and Paulsen Sherida: Van Alen Institute, (United States) 2003 * "Saarinen House and Garden: A Total Work of Art" co-authored with Roy Slade, and Gregory Wittkopp, photography by Balthazar Korab: Harry N. Abrams, (United States) 1995 * "Transitory Gardens, Uprooted Lives" co-authored with

Margaret Morton Margaret Morton MBE (born 29 January 1968) is a Scottish curler and Olympic champion. She received a gold medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City

: Yale University Press, (United States) 1995 * "Redesigning the American Lawn"A Search for Environmental Harmony co-authored with F. Herbert Bormann and GordoGeballe: Yale University Press, (United States) 1993 * "Trails for the Twenty-First Century: Planning, Design, and Management Manual for Multi-Use Trail," co-authored with Charles A. Flink, Peter Lagerwey, and Robert M.Searns, ed. Karen-Lee Ryan National Rails-to-Trails Conservancy: Island Press, (United States) 1993 * "Beatrix Farrand, American Landscapes:Garden and Campus Designs" co-authored with Diane McGuire and Eleanor McPeck: Sagapress, (United States) 1985

Early life and education

Career

Style

Notable works

Selected bibliography

References

Further reading