A University of Texas at Texas landscape architecture professor will be presenting a lecture in Little Rock on February 5, as part of the Architecture and Design Network’s 2018-19 June Freeman Lecture Series.
Gabriel Diaz Montemayor, an assistant professor of landscape architecture at the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin and co-founder of LABOR Studio in Chihuahua, Mexico, will explore the profession of landscape architecture from the context of the Latin American continent, and from the more specific context of Mexico.
According to a University of Arkansas press release, landscape architecture is a different profession in Latin America compared to the United States. Diaz Montemayor will examine the history of the profession and discuss the “diffrerent origins and meaning of public space in this continent…”
The contemporary condition of public space in Mexico will be explained as one of the unique conditions assembling the Latin American mosaic. The country has recently gone through dramatic changes in public life, society, culture and politics. A set of case studies in landscape architecture and public space, in which Diaz Montemayor has been involved in different capacities, will be used to explain the challenges and opportunities for landscape architecture in Mexico.
The Mexican projects include applied academic studios trying to fill the void between the planning and the implementation of public infrastructure projects needing landscape architectural methods and matter. These will also include professional public space commissions based on community reconstruction, engagement and participation. Both applied studios and professional projects operate in a third context, northern Mexico. This will lead to a final proposition reflecting on a potential future for the border region between the United States and Mexico, one in which societies are reconciled with their common ground.
Diaz Montemayor is an architect educated at the School of the Desert: The Superior Institute of Architecture and Design (ISAD) at Chihuahua, Mexico. He holds an architect degree from the Autonomous University of Chihuahua, Mexico, and received his Master of Landscape Architecture from Auburn University in 2007. Diaz Montemayor co-founded LABOR Studio, an architecture, urban design and landscape architecture practice based in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 2002. The studio has engaged in a variety of private and public commissions.
The 2018-18 June Freeman Lecture Series is sponsored by the Architecture and Design Network with support from the Arkansas Arts Center, the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, the Central Arkansas section of the Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and community members.
The lecture will be held at the Arkansas Arts Center, 501 E. Ninth St., in Little Rock. The lecture will follow a 5:30 p.m. reception. The lecture is free and open to the public, and no reservations are needed.
READ MORE: Windgate Foundation Donates $20 Million to UCA
