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- Conference
Réponses à la diversité du paysage by Isabel AGUIRRE DE URCOLA – Château de Bénouville
In response to the diversity of landscapes
The diversity of landscapes is an obvious notion that today’s society can easily verify, via television, cinema and tourism; the diversity of landscaping projects reflects that same diversity. This conference offers an opportunity to reflect on the question, via the example of projects focusing on the Santa Domingo de Bonaval Park, the Caaveiro Monastery, and the Galician ‘Literary Garden’ and ‘Park of the Lake’, for which very different situations gave way to a diversity of solutions. However, the fundamental criteria were the same: respect for nature, for the site and its history, and in the use of materials and forms that enter into dialogue with new areas and future uses. They will provide a place for leisure, contemplation on nature and reflection in general.
Isabel Aguirre de Urcola
Isabel Aguirre de Urcola is an architect at the University of A Coruña. She worked as a lecturer at the Technical University College of Architecture and the University College of Industrial Design at the University of Coruña from 1991 to 2007. She was awarded the national ‘Manuel de la Dehesa’ prize for her work on the Santa Domingo de Bonaval Park and on the area around the Galician Centre of Contemporary Art in Santiago de Compostela. In 2004, she exhibited her work ‘Los 15 mejores Paisajistas de Europa’ (The 15 best landscapers in Europe) at Harvard. In 2015, Isabel Aguirre de Urcola was awarded the AADIPA European Award of Intervention on Architectural Heritage (AADIPA—group of Architects who strive to defend and intervene on architectural heritage and the Official College of Architects of Catalonia) for her work on Caaveiro Monastery. The same year, she received the Maria Josefa Wonenburger prize for Science and Technology (Xunta de Galicia). In 2016, she was awarded the Castelao Medal by the Xunta de Galicia in tribute to her professional career. She is currently director of the Juana de Vega Galician School of Landscape, of the Juana de Vega Foundation and is also director of the Juana de la Vega Galician School of Landscape’s Research Group and a member of the Expert Committee for the Mariñas Coruñesas y Tierras de Mandeo Biosphere Reserve.