Anita Berrizbeitia, “The Blue Hills: Charles Eliot’s Design Experiment (1893-1897)”

This lecture explores how developments in the earth sciences—specifically geology, evolutionism, and biogeography—ushered in advances in design methodologies for large public–realm landscapes in late nineteenth-century Boston.

Anita Berrizbeitia is a Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She served as Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture between 2015-2022 and as Program Director of the Master in Landscape Architecture Degree Programs between 2012-2015. Her research explores nineteenth and twentieth-century public realm landscapes, with interests in material culture, urban political ecology, and the productive functions of landscapes in processes of urbanization and climate adaptation. Her research on Latin American cities and landscapes focuses, in addition, on the role of large-scale infrastructural projects on territorial organization, climate adaptation, and on the interface between landscape and emerging urbanization.