Teresa Galí-Izard Appointed Chair of Landscape Architecture, Brings Innovation to U.Va. School of Architecture

Teresa Galí-Izard, the new chair of landscape architecture for the University of Virginia School of Architecture, is “an astonishingly inventive and accomplished landscape architect,” said Kim Tanzer, the school’s dean.

“As the new chair, I will work with a group of excellent faculty,” Galí-Izard said. “It will be a privilege to share with them numerous projects, ranging from design and health to sustainable communities to urban agriculture.

“We have a broad list of topics to work on, a lot of work to do, and a lot of opportunities. It is time for landscape architecture.”

Galí-Izard has consistently sought new and innovative ways to focus on projects with materials from nature, such as earth, water and vegetation.

Since 1989, she has been a designer of numerous private and urban gardens, parks, landscape interventions and nature restorations.

“Landscape architecture is becoming more relevant and highly involved in the improvement of the public good,” Galí-Izard said. “Through designing public spaces and urban landscapes, we reach a level of social equity and create healthy communities.”

In 2007, along with Jordi Nebot – who, like Galí-Izard, also joined the U.Va. Architecture School faculty in 2012 – she founded Arquitectura Agronomía, a landscape architecture firm located in Barcelona.

“Teresa’s firm designs landscapes that help us experience the world in new ways – one of many reasons the world's best architecture firms seek to collaborate with her,” Tanzer said.

With Nebot, Galí-Izard has built a large number of projects in Spain, including the San Telmo Palace garden in Sevilla, Arriaga Lake in Vitoria, Odesa Park in Sabadell, Logroño Train Station Park, Casabermeja Park in Malaga, Desierto Square in Bilbao and Giner de los Rios Garden in Madrid.

In the last 20 years, Galí-Izard has been involved in many other important contemporary landscape architecture projects, including the new urbanization of Passeig de Sant Joan and the restoration of the Sant Joan landfill, in Barcelona, which won the European Urban Public Space award in 2004.

She has been selected as a finalist in major landscape competitions in Spain, such as Cañaveral Park in Madrid and Central Park in Valencia, and has won many competitions, including the Energy Waste Recycling category at the World Architecture Festival.

Her book, “The Same Landscapes: Ideas and Interpretations,” published in 2005, compiles observations about interesting landscapes, gathered over a decade, from the vantage point of planning and management.

Galí-Izard was trained as an agricultural technical engineer, and earned her postgraduate degree in gardening and landscape at the School of Architecture of Barcelona, Polytechnic University of Catalonia.

She has taught in the master’s program in landscape architecture and environment at the Escuela Técnica Superior in Madrid, and has lectured in the School of Architecture of Oslo in Norway; the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Wien, Austria; the Academy of Architecture of Mendrisio in Switzerland; the School of Architecture of Grenoble University in France; and Oporto School of Architecture in Portugal.

“Beyond her deep background in architectural practice at the highest level, Teresa comes from a family of sophisticated educators,” Tanzer said. “She will bring her creative approach to our already strong landscape architecture curriculum,” a foundation that outgoing chair, Nancy A. Takahashi, who will remain on the faculty, helped to build..

“We are very lucky to have Teresa here with us in the School of Architecture.”