Svava Riesto

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I am an associate professor in the history and heritage of landscape architecture and I lead the research group Landscape Architecture and Urban History. 

My writings contribute historical and heritage perspectives to contemporary urban questions connected to climate change, ecology and social justice. I focus on the buildings and landscapes of the 20^th century welfare states - their histories, legacies and imagined futures. Today, cities need to address this living heritage in ecologically sustainable and socially just ways and my research contributes knowledge and frameworks with which we can build such approaches. To do so, I develop collaborative formats for research and teaching, often in companionship with local communities and other societal actors.

From 2020-2023 I lead the project Women in Danish Architecture 1925-1975. A new history of practice and gender together with Henriette Steiner. The project contributes to building a more just and comprehensive understanding of how the buildings, landscapes and cities of the Danish welfare state came about, focussing on collaboration across genders and practices. You can hear a podcast about methods and findings in the project Women in Danish Architecture here (in Danish). English-speakers can read an interview with me about the project here. 

 

Publications

My most recent books are Biography of an Industrial Landscape: Carlsberg’s Urban Spaces Retold (Amsterdam University Press 2017), ByWomen. A guidebook to everyday architecture in Greater Copenhagen (with Liv Løvetand Rahbek and Henriette Steiner) and the co-edited Vademecum: 77 Minor Terms for Writing Urban Places (NAi Publishers 2020, with Havik, Pint and Steiner), European Mass Housing Landscapes (special issue of Landscape Research with Braae, Tietjen, Steiner, 2021) and Forankring i Forandring. Christiania og bevaring som ressource i byomdannelse (ed. with Tietjen, Skov, Arkitektskolens Forlag).

The most recent publication on the nexus of climate adaptation, heritage and landscape planning is Plans for Uncertain Futures with Linde Egberts, Gertrud Jørgensen and Anna Aslaug Lund.

My next books will be Untold Stories. On women, gender and architecture in Denmark (to appear in June 2023, Strandberg Publishing, co-written with Jannie Rosenberg Bendsen and Henriette Steiner) and Diversifying Architectural Histories. Feminist practices and writing differently  (edited with Henriette Steiner, deGruyter, to be published in fall 2023).

 

Exhibitions and outreach

My public engagement draws from my several years’ experience working in participatory urban planning and landscape design. 

I co-curated the historical part of the critically acclaimed exhibition Women at DAC (May-October 2022) together with the team of the research project Women in Danish Architecture and the Danish Architecture Centre. Other examples of my curatorial work is the exhibition Wunderstadt at the Galerie Aedes Berlin, Albertslunds Øhav at the local town hall Albertslund and, the living-heritage section of the HERA-funded exhibitions PuSH Public Space in European Social Housing. 

I am part of Action Archive -a group of researchers and artists who co-organize public oral history seminars, participatory events and exhibitions to give voice to actors and perspectives that don't usually make it to the archive.

 

Current teaching, supervision and mentoring

MSc course leader, Theories and Methods of Landscape Architecture

BSc course leader, Landskabsarkitekturens historie, nutid og fremtid

MSc and BSc dissertation supervisor

 

Current post-doctoral supervision:

Postdoctoral mentor for Heidi Svenningsen Kajita, (Im)possible Instructions: Inscribing Use-Value in the Architectural Design Process, international postdoc based at Newcastle University, funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark, 2019–21

 

Supervisor for postdoctoral researcher Jannie Rosenberg Bendsen Women in Danish Architecture, together with Henriette Steiner. Project funded by Realdania, the Danish Arts Foundation, National Building Fund, Dreyer’s Foundation, Boyes Foundation. 2020-2023.

 

 

PhD supervision (2 gratuated, as main supervisor).

Currently supervisor for :

Anne Pind, "Eco-feminist spatial practises: Sweden and Denmark at the beginning of the 20th Century" The Danish Academy, School of Architecture, co-supervisor

Nicole De Lalouviere, "Irrigation Systems of Canton Valais. Transformations in Material Culture and the Resillience of Landscape Commons", ETH Zürich, co-supervisor