Speakers
Ila Berman, DDes, MRAIC
Ila Berman, Associate Dean of the Tulane School of Architecture and Principal of studioMatrixx, is an architect and architectural theorist who holds a Doctorate in Architectural History, Theory and Criticism from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. As Associate Dean, Berman directs the academic curriculum of the school and teaches architectural and urban design studios, and courses in history, theory, urban analysis and cultural studies, while also directing the Central European Travel Program in Vienna, Prague, Berlin and Basel and the new Watercities program in the Netherlands, Venice and Barcelona/Bilbao.
Berman is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Medal for Design, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Fellowships, and the J.P. Herndon Traveling Fellowship where she conducted research on contemporary urban and architectural landscapes in Paris and Barcelona. Most recently, she was the 2005 recipient of the President's Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching - the highest teaching award given by Tulane University.
In December 2005, Berman completed, with Joan Busquets and Felipe Correa, the collaborative publication by Harvard University: New Orleans: Strategies for a City in Soft Land - the result of a research project focusing on the urban, infrastructural, and environmental conditions of the evolution of New Orleans, which exposes the complex relationships between the strictures of the city and the indeterminate animation of the Mississippi river.
Professionally, Ila Berman is principal of the architectural firm studioMatrixx, an interdisciplinary design firm which toured the exhibit "bodyworks" - an exhibition, research project and upcoming book that explores the relationships between the human body and architecture. Berman is currently working on a number of projects including the Memorial Classroom, a laminated glass architectural installation project presently under construction on Tulane's campus, as well as the development of the URBANbuild program which she co-directs, and for which she received a $300,000. HUD grant. Located in the new Tulane City Center, URBANbuild is an outreach design program, providing urban design and innovative sustainable prototypical housing solutions to rehabilitate and revitalize areas of the city historically dominated by blight and abandonment. This program is focusing on post-Katrina reconstruction efforts in the Greater New Orleans area.
Berman was also appointed to the Urban Design Committee of the Mayor's BNOB Commission in New Orleans, where she worked collaboratively to support the development of design directives and strategies for the rebuilding of the city. Most recently, Berman was a finalist with Reiser + Umemoto on the Reinventing the Crescent waterfront project for New Orleans, and was responsible for designing the exhibition entitled: "New Orleans: Urban Mappings for a Future City", in the U.S. Pavilion at the Biennale in Venice, Italy, one of the most significant international exhibitions on architecture and urban design in the world.
"From Urban Landscapes to Landscape Urbanism"
I am going to talk about urban topographies and various forms of landscape urbanism, in relation to a number of different projects that I have initiated and developed including: the "New Orleans: Urban Mappings for a Future City" installation, which was part of the "After the Flood" exhibition, which was on display in the US pavilion at the Venice Biennale this past fall and is currently part of a world tour; the URBANbuild program at Tulane, which is a collaborative urban, architectural design and housing prototype construction program at the School of Architecture, which I launched to act as a laboratory for city research and a generator for urban transformation and revitalization; as well as the RiverEdge studio and New Orleans' book project (New Orleans: Strategies for a City in Soft Land), a collaboration between Tulane and Harvard which was an analysis and design investigation focusing on the urban, infrastructural, and environmental conditions of New Orleans' Mississippi river waterfront.