Architectures and Ecologies of Amazonia is an interdisciplinary international symposium and exhibition highlighting the agencies that have shaped and are shaped by Amazonia. Threatened by deforestation, fire, and drought, the Amazon rainforest, which spans nine countries, is home to more than thirty million people. It is the ancestral homeland of more than one million Indigenous peoples and supports the greatest concentration of biodiversity on Earth. In the face of the widespread socio-environmental challenges we currently face, along with the existential threat of crossing the environmental tipping point of the Amazon rainforest, the symposium aims to share lessons that the study of the Amazon can teach us about climate action, coexistence, and the built environment.
The full-day symposium on February 7 is organized by Vanessa Grossman, Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, and Catherine Seavitt, Meyerson Professor of Urbanism and Chair, Department of Landscape Architecture, in collaboration with Fernando Lara, Professor, Department of Architecture and Kristina Lyons, Associate Professor of Anthropology. A parallel exhibition of student work will be held in the Mezzanine Gallery of Meyerson Hall from February 7 through May 1, 2025. The exhibition is designed by Jonathan Bonezzi and Ryan Lane.
Architectures and Ecologies of Amazonia is co-hosted by the Department of Architecture, the Department of Landscape Architecture, and the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology. The symposium has also received generous support from several programs and initiatives across the University of Pennsylvania, including the Perry World House International Visitors Grant Program and the Penn Global Convening Grant, the Department of Anthropology, the Center for Experimental Ethnography, the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies, and Native American and Indigenous Studies at Penn. The symposium is organized in collaboration with the Faculty of Technology of the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM), and the Núcleo Arquitetura Moderna na Amazônia (NAMA).
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