Two keynote speakers have been announced for the 2021 CSLA-OALA Congress: Martha Schwartz and Maude Barlow. Read their bios below.
Martha Schwartz FASLA, Hon FRIBA, Hon RDI
Martha Schwartz is a landscape architect and artist with major interests in cities, communities and the urban landscape. Her work spans from site-specific art installations to working with cities at strategic planning levels. Her focus is on environmental sustainability and the creation of awareness about how the urban landscape underwrites urban sustainability through functioning as the connective platform for a city’s environmental, social and economic health. Schwartz is an advocate for how cities can help to reduce climate change and support a more sustainable approach to diminishing resources. Schwartz continues her devotion to the built environment through pushing new boundaries and expressions as a designer. She strongly believes that sustainability is created through design and the creation of identity and a sense of place as our landscapes help to differentiate ourselves in an ever-growing uniformity of place as a result of globalization. As founder and senior partner of Martha Schwartz Partners, she has over 35 years of experience as a landscape architect, urbanist and artist on a wide variety of projects located around the world.
She is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes including the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award; a Council of Fellows Award by the American Society of Landscape Architects; an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Institute of British Architects; the Honorary Royal Designer for Industry Award from the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacturing and Commerce for her outstanding contribution to UK design; the Women in Design Award for Excellence; from the Boston Society of Architects; a fellowship from the Urban Design Institute visiting residencies at Radcliffe College; the American Academy in Rome; an Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Ulster in Belfast, Ireland; and most recently a Doctor Honoris Causa from the Boston Architectural College;
Martha Schwartz is a tenured Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, advancing design for Climate Change Mitigation, a founding member of the Working Group of Sustainable Cities at the Harvard University Center for the Environment and an active member of the Landscape Architecture Foundation Climate Change Task Force. She has lectured both nationally and internationally on sustainable cities and the public realm landscape, and her work has been featured widely in publications as well as museums, including the Chicago Institute of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Royal Academy of Arts in London. She is presently also Guest Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, School of Design and the Chair of the jury for the Obel Award in Architecture.
Most recently, she is teaching and lecturing to create a fuller understanding of the climate crisis and how landscape architects and other practitioners of the built environment can better address the risks we are facing, and to create awareness of the many possible solutions being developed in science, including geoengineering, which we may be able to integrate into our practices to help cities adapt and mitigate the risks of our changing climate.
Martha Schwartz's Keynote Address is Sponsored by: ABC Recreation
Maude Barlow
Maude Barlow is the National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians and Senior Advisor on Water to the United Nations. She also chairs the board of Washington-based Food and Water Watch and is a Councillor with the Hamburg-based World Future Council.
Maude Barlow was one of the “1000 Women for Peace” nominated for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. In the same year, she received the prestigious Lannon Cultural Freedom Fellowship as well as the Right Livelihood Award. Known as the “Alternative Nobel” and given by the Swedish Parliament, the Right Livelihood Award cited her “exemplary and long-standing worldwide work for trade justice and the recognition of the fundamental right to water.” She also won the Citation of Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2008 Canadian Environmental Awards, Canada’s highest environmental honour.
Recently Maude was named the first Advisor on Water to the United Nations where she advises Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockman, the new President of the General Assembly. Maude is also the star of several documentaries about water. She is also the best selling author or co-author of 16 books, including the recently released Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and The Coming Battle for the Right to Water.