Landscape architect Diana Balmori died of lung cancer on November 14 in Manhattan at the age of 84. Balmori was born in Gijón, Spain, and grew up in Tucumán, Argentina, where she studied architecture and met her husband, César Pelli. The couple migrated to the U.S. in 1952. Balmori earned a Ph.D. in urban history at UCLA and, after the two moved to the east coast, she turned to landscape design, working in Pelli’s New Haven office and teaching at Yale University. In 1990, she founded Balmori Associates and designed major landscape and urban design projects for Bilbao and Sejong, South Korea, among other places. Her longtime collaborator, architect Joel Sanders, reflects on Balmori’s contributions.
Once in a lifetime, fortune puts us in contact with an individual who changes how we see the world. For me, that person was Diana Balmori. Our first encounter was a post-lecture dinner at the Yale School of Architecture in 2002, where we both were teaching. A lively conversation evolved into an eye-opening, 14-year professional collaboration that exposed me to a new discipline— landscape—which had not been central to my way of thinking or working.
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