Ekdahl Lecture History

Title: "Sustaining Beauty 2.0" Aesthetics as an Ecosystem Service

Elizabeth K. Meyer, FASLA, is the Merrill D. Peterson Professor of

Landscape Architecture at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, where she has taught since 1993, also serving as Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture as well as Dean of the School of Architecture. She holds degrees from the University of Virginia and Cornell University; she taught previously at Cornell and Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and practiced as a landscape architect with the EDAW and Hanna/Olin design firms. She was named one of the 25 most admired educators in the U.S. by DesignIntelligence in 2011, 2012, and 2013.

Ms. Meyer is engaged nationally as a studio critic and lecturer; she has published widely on contemporary landscape design practice and theory, exploring such issues as the social and aesthetic implications of creating new parks on toxic industrial sites, and the role of aesthetics in sustainable design. A recipient of a Dumbarton Oaks Fellowship, she is currently completing a book, The Margins of Modernity: Practices

of Landscape Architecture. She was a member of the competition-winning team in 2010 for the grounds of the St. Louis Gateway Arch and recently served on the jury for the National Mall Design Competition sponsored by the Trust for the National Mall. In 2015, Ms. Meyer founded the UVA Center for Cultural Landscapes, a transdisciplinary research center dedicated to exploring critical approaches to researching, interpreting, and changing landscapes through management, planning, and design. In recognition of her contributions as an educator to the theory and practice of contemporary landscape architecture, Ms. Meyer was named a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 2003, and the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture in 2012.

Enrique Sobejano has worked as an architect since graduating from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and the Graduate School of Architecture and Planning at Columbia University in New York in 1983. He is a professor at the Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK), where he holds the chair of Principles of Design. He has been a visiting critic and lecturer at various international universities worldwide. From 1986 to 1991 he was co-director of the architectural journal ARQUITECTURA, published by the Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid. He chairs and participates in international conferences and juries and is a founding partner of Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos. He is a permanent member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin (AdK).

Fuensanta Nieto has worked as an architect since graduating from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and the Graduate School of Architecture and Planning at Columbia University in New York in 1983. She is a founding partner of Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos and a professor at the IE University. Fuensanta Nieto lectures on architecture and participates in juries and symposia at various institutions around the world. From 1986 to 1991 she was co-director of the architectural journal ARQUITECTURA, published by the Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid.

Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos was founded by Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano and has offices in Madrid and Berlin. Along with being widely published in international magazines and books, the firm’s work has been exhibited at the Biennale di Venezia, at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, at the Kunsthaus in Graz, and at the MAST Foundation in Bologna. They are the recipients of the National Prize for Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage by the Ministry of Cuture of Spain (2008), the Nike Prize issued by the Bund Deutscher Architekten (BDA), (2010),as well as the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2010),the Piranesi Prix de Rome (2011),the European Museum of the Year Award (2012),the Hannes Meyer Prize (2012),the Alvar Aalto Medal (2015)andthe Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts by the Ministry of Culture of Spain in 2017. Their major works include the Madinat al-Zahra Museum, the Moritzburg Museum in Halle, the San Telmo Museum in San Sebastián, the Zaragoza Congress Centre, the Martin Chirino Foundation in Las Palmas, the Joanneum Museum extension in Graz, the Contemporary Art Centre in Córdoba, the Arvo Pärt Centre in Estonia, the Montblanc Haus in Hamburg, the Archive of the Avant-Garde in Dresden and the extension of the Archaeologische Staatssammlung in Munich. Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos is currently working on projects in several countries, among them, the extension of the Sorolla Museum in Madrid, the Carmen Thyssen Museum in Girona, the Museum of Vannes, the Cité du Théâtre in Paris, the Museum of Pontevedra and the Dallas Museum of Art in the US. Four monographs have been published on their work: "Nieto Sobejano. Memory and Invention" (Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, Germany, 2013), "Fuensanta Nieto, Enrique Sobejano. Architetture" (Mondadori Electa Spa, Milano, Italy, 2014), "Nieto Sobejano Arquitectura 2004-2017" (TC Cuadernos 131/132, Valencia, Spain, 2017) and “Arvo Pärt Centre & Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos - A Common Denominator” (ArchiTangle, Berlin, 2020).