The Mexican legacy of landscaper Mario Schjetnan

It’s astir intolerable to envision definite cities without their parks and their unsocial personalities. How overmuch of our corporate imaginativeness regarding New York City is tied to Central Park? What astir Hyde Park successful London oregon Bosque de Chapultepec successful Mexico City? Landscape architecture is not lone a quality close but besides a taste treasure that enhances beingness and intelligence well-being wrong municipality spaces.

In Mexico, 1 of the foremost minds down this creation is Mario Schjetnan. “If you privation to make a caller tract oregon area, you should commencement with a park,” is 1 of his much fashionable quotes. Schjetnan understands that we are some quality and architecture, and that without nature, architecture tin go detrimental to our health.

Tezozómoc Park was Schjetnan’s archetypal task successful 1979. (Ana Paula de la Torre)

An icon of scenery architecture, Schjetnan has near an indelible people connected the past of the subject successful Mexico, starting with his archetypal task successful 1979: the legendary Tezozómoc Park, inspired by the past Lake Texcoco. Schjetnan views unfastened spaces arsenic a “human right” and a means to “improve livability successful the poorest sectors of Mexico and Latin America, promoting societal justness and municipality equity, portion enriching the wealthiest areas.”

A travel done the enactment of Schjetnan

Environmental awareness, taste representation and prime of beingness each converge successful the enactment of Mario Schjetnan. He studied architecture astatine the National Autonomous University of Mexico and earned a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. In 1977, helium co-founded the Urban Design Group with architects José Luis Pérez, Irma Schjetnan (his wife) and Letty Pérez. The steadfast has designed galore parks successful Mexico, Latin America, the Middle East, China and the U.S.

To exemplify the breadth of his power connected Mexican urbanism and architecture, helium served arsenic the archetypal manager of municipality and lodging plan astatine INFONAVIT, the Mexican government’s societal lodging institution, successful 1972, overseeing projects successful 110 Mexican cities and producing astir 100,000 lodging units.

His astir important works see projects that conserve indispensable ecosystems, specified arsenic the restoration of Chapultepec Forest, Xochimilco Ecological Park and Copalita Eco-Archaeological Park. He has besides created singular municipality parks connected reclaimed concern sites, including La Mexicana Park and Bicentennial Park successful Mexico City.

For instance, Tezozómoc Park recreates the water that erstwhile surrounded Tenochtitlán successful pre-Hispanic times and present serves arsenic a sanctuary for birds and the unsocial axolotl. The Xochimilco Ecological Park is associated with restoring the productive chinampa area, a pre-Hispanic method of cultivating floating terraces, earning designation arsenic a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Additionally, the Copalita Eco-Archaeological Park is invaluable for archaeological and biology conservation connected the beaches of Oaxaca.

Likewise noteworthy is Itzicuaro Park successful Michoacán, a groundbreaking illustration of scenery architecture owed to its dual relation arsenic an ecological and productive space. It is based connected 5 bodies of h2o that sequentially dainty wastewater, with areas allocated for the commercialized cultivation of trees, plants and vegetables.

A multi-award career

Xochimilco Ecological Park has earned designation arsenic a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Ana Paula de la Torre)

Mario Schjetnan has undoubtedly impacted modern Mexican scenery architecture, and his power transcends borders. According to The Cultural Landscape Foundation, Schjetnan “belongs to a procreation of scenery architects, architects and municipality planners who recognized the biology impacts of municipality improvement and its consequences for beingness connected the planet.”

This year, Schjetnan and the Urban Design Group received the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Award. This biennial award, established successful 2014, aims to summation visibility, understanding, appreciation and dialog surrounding scenery architecture. Schjetnan and the Urban Design Group are the archetypal Latin Americans to person this honor.

Additional accolades see the Holcim Foundation Award successful 2008 for the Itzácuaro Park project, which created caller occupation opportunities for assemblage farmers, installed an effectual flood power strategy and revitalized a heavy polluted drainage channel. He was besides awarded the Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award, the highest grant from the International Federation of Landscape Architects, successful 2015, and the Elise and Walter A. Haas International Award successful 2019, which recognizes Berkeley alumni surviving overseas who person achieved vocation success.

Mario Schjetnan’s enactment is guided by an unquestionable endowment and a doctrine that unites humans and nature. His creations resonate with galore sensitivities, dignifying taste practice and emphasizing the powerfulness of imagination, arsenic good arsenic the quality and healing properties of nature, portion respecting its balance.

Ana Paula de la Torre is a Mexican writer and collaborator for assorted outlets, including Milenio, Animal Político, Vice, Newsweek en Español, Televisa and Mexico News Daily.