Mexican Landscape Architect Mario Schjetnan and Grupo de Diseño Urbano Win 2025 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize
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Media Contact: Nord Wennerstrom | T: 202.483.0553 | M: 202.255.7076 | E: nord@tclf.org
Schjetnan’s guiding principle: “We have a human right to open space”
Biennial prize includes a $100,000 award and two years of public engagement activities
October 14, 2025 (Washington, D.C.) – The Cultural Landscape Foundation (“TCLF”), a Washington, D.C.-based education and advocacy non-profit established in 1998, today announced that Mexico City-based landscape architect Mario Schjetnan, and the firm he founded and leads, Grupo de Diseño Urbano (GDU), are the recipients of the 2025 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize (“Oberlander Prize”). Schjetnan and GDU, a landscape architecture, urbanism, and architecture firm founded in 1977, have worked extensively throughout Mexico, Latin America, the Middle East, and the United States. The biennial Oberlander Prize includes a $100,000 award and two years of public engagement activities focused on the laureate’s work and landscape architecture more broadly. Schjetnan will be a featured speaker in the forthcoming Oberlander Prize Forum Soak it Up: Los Angeles, CA on December 5, 2025. Schjetnan and GDU were selected by an international seven-person jury from more than 300 nominations received from around the world. The Oberlander Prize winner’s qualifications include being “exceptionally talented, creative, courageous, and visionary” and having “a significant body of built work that exemplifies the art of landscape architecture.” The Oberlander Prize Jury Citation notes: “In a time of rapidly developing megacities and cultural homogenization, Grupo de Diseño Urbano (GDU), founded and led by Mario Schjetnan, is a strong voice for social engagement and environmental justice in tandem with the art of landscape architecture. Their work bridges the ethical and the aesthetic, advocating for access to nature in the city as a fundamental human right.” It also states: “GDU’s portfolio of built work delivers tangible impact and a model for delivering public landscapes as essential infrastructure in a rapidly urbanizing world—home to more than half of the world’s population.”
The Oberlander Prize website includes a written biography of the laureate, a twelve-minute long introductory video about Schjetnan and GDU, and a trio of four-minute long videos about significant projects: Xochimilco Ecological Park, Chapultepec Forest and Park, and La Mexicana Park.
About Mario Schjetnan and Grupo de Diseño Urbano
Mario Schjectnan, the founder of Grupo de Diseño Urbano (GDU), has an undergraduate degree in architecture from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) (1968), and a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley (1970), and he was awarded the Loeb Fellowship from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (1984) to pursue advanced environmental studies. In 1995 the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo Léon awarded him an Honorary PhD in Architecture, and in 2025 the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California also awarded him an Honorary PhD in Architecture.
Schjetnan is part of a generation of landscape architects, architects, and urbanists who became aware of the environmental impact of urban development and its consequences on life, the planet, and its inhabitants. He created new theories and practices for the design of cities based on environmental knowledge, cultural memory, and consideration for the inhabitant's quality of life, well-being, and a new ethical and aesthetic relationship with the environment.
Schjetnan’s influences include Mexican Modernist architects such as Luis Barragán, Max Cetto, and Mario Pani. In terms of landscape architecture, he cites Luis Barragán, Roberto Burle Marx, and Lawrence Halprin (the latter was his impetus for studying at Berkeley), along with artists such as Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and Juan O'Gorman, novelist Carlos Fuentes, poet Octavio Paz, and the country’s rich legacy of pre-Hispanic myths, architecture and culture, and among others.
Before establishing GDU, Schjetnan was the first head of urban and housing design (1972-77) at INFONAVIT, a government initiative created to provide workers’ housing. It was a life changing experience during which he traveled extensively throughout the country and discovered, what he calls, Mexico’s “mosaic of cultures.” He recently said, “For me it was like a post doctorate degree in Mexico,” adding, “we created a series of environmental and urban design concepts different from what had been done before in housing.” He recently recalled: “We worked in 110 cities in Mexico. We built, in five years, 100,000 houses/units, and in Mexico City just about 25,000.”
During his Loeb Fellowship Schjetnan developed an interest in public-private partnerships, a concept well-established in the U.S. for developing and/or maintaining civic infrastructure projects, but unknown in Mexico (in fact, it did not begin to take hold in Mexico until the early 1990s). He cites Chapultepec Park and La Mexicana Park as models for how a public-private partnership can work.
GDU was founded in 1977 Schjetnan with architect José Luiz Pérez as his principal partner and their respective wives, Irma Schjetnan, and Letty Pérez. Since then, Schjetnan and GDU have designed and constructed an extensive body of works of landscape architecture, urbanism, and architecture throughout Mexico, as well as in Latin America, China, the Middle East, and the U.S. GDU’s vast portfolio of projects includes a cross-section of nationally significant historic sites like Chapultepec Park, the oldest park in the Americas, and Xochimilco Ecological Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site with origins in the tenth century, and Copalita Eco-archaeological Park in Oaxaca, and new parks in reclaimed post-industrial sites, such as La Mexicana Park, a vast former quarry, and Bicentennial Park on the site of the former PEMEX oil refinery in Mexico City. The firm’s portfolio currently includes parks (accounting for nearly half of their business), residential development, post-industrial sites, museums, and others. Schjetnan and GDU’s projects emphasize water sustainability, the recycling and repurposing of post-industrial sites, and the rehabilitation and improvement of urban and natural public spaces.
When asked to define what makes a GDU landscape, he recently stated: “I think, first of all, the concept of culture. The concept that the landscape is really about culture.” And, secondly, “it’s site specific.” Schjetnan also states, “if you want to develop a site or a new area, you have to start with a park.” He says, “the major question of my life is to improve livability [both] in the poorest sections of Mexico and Latin America—to provide social justice and urban equity—and also in the richest sections.” He believes, quite simply and—emphatically—that there is a “human right to open space.”
Mario Schjetnan has held professorships and taught design workshops at Harvard University (1994, 1998, 2005), the University of Arizona, Tucson (1999-2001), the University of California, Berkeley (2001), the University of Texas, Austin (2006), and the University of Virginia (2007, 2021), in the U.S. In Mexico, at UNAM (1970-1972, 2001), the Universidad Iberoamericana (1979-1981), ITESO in Guadalajara (1980-1981), and the University of Baja California (1983-1984). He has given lectures and facilitated workshops in the U.S., Australia, Europe, Latin America, New Zealand, China, Israel, and South Africa.
He is a member of the Academy of Arts of Mexico; Emeritus member of the National Academy of Architecture; Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects; and founding member of the Mexican Society of Landscape Architects (1975).
GDU is composed of: Mario Schjetnan (Founding Partner and Director), Ana Schjetnan (Partner), Manuel Peniche (Senior Associate), Marco A. González (Senior Associate), Carlos Rascón (Associate), José Luis Gómez Hidalgo, Héctor González, María de Jesús Tapia, Jimena Camacho, Estefanía Reyes, Brenda Arellano, Fernanda García, Carmen Rodríguez, Ana Campos, Andrea Ramírez, Fernanda Gómez, Ulises Victores, David Aizenman, Rubén Gómez, Gustavo Rojas (External Associate), Rodrigo Hernández (External Associate), Daniel Ramírez (External Associate), Fabián Tron (External Associate), and Ingrid Schjetnan (External Associate).
Notable projects in Mexico include the following:
Xochimilco Ecological Park – From 1990-93 GDU created this 684-acre park, with an 1,400-stall flower and plant market, which layered interpretation, recreation, nature preserve, and passive spaces into a larger 7,413-acre cultural landscape, and UNESCO World Heritage Site, distinguished by lagoons and chinampas—an ancient agricultural system of floating, artificial islands (chinampas). GDU restored this cultural landscape while designing a complex hydrologic system of navigation, sanitation, and stormwater management and bird sanctuary.
Chapultepec Forest and Park – At the oldest and, at 2,140 acres, the second largest city park in Latin America, and Mexico’s “Central Park”; GDU rehabilitated a landscape layered with Aztec, Spanish, and modern Mexican legacies. Over a twenty year period GDU: created a masterplan and a thirteen-acre botanical garden; oversaw the creation of vast new promenades, and the pruning, planting, and removal of thousands of trees; rehabilitated historic entrances, lighting, and water-related infrastructure; and introduced new wayfinding and visitor amenities.
La Mexicana Park – In the Santa Fe District on the perimeter of Mexico City, this former sand and gravel quarry was carved into the western hills of the Valley of Mexico and closed after the earthquake of 1985. A public-private partnership developed 70% of the 99-acre site as a public park and 30% as housing, related infrastructure, and urban development. A paseo runs the length of the site that terminates at an amphitheater surrounded by water. Numerous amenities, all shielded from the paseo, include a dog park and skate park, while at the park’s southwestern edge, a roller-skating park, athletic fields, and nature preserve are sited atop a partially underground supermarket. La Mexicana is rapidly becoming Mexico City’s most famous contemporary public park.
Bicentennial Park - Nature Garden – Mexico City, Mexico. Occupying a 21-acre section within the 136-acre park in the Azcapotzalco borough of Mexico City, this botanical garden was designed to reverse the hydrological and geological damage inflicted by a former PEMEX oil refinery. Schjetnan’s design comprises a series of nine rectilinear indoor and outdoor botanical gardens representing Mexico’s various ecosystems—including deserts, tropical forests, and wetlands—connected by a network of linear walkways branching off from the main path.
Museum of the Northern Cultures, Paquimé – Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico. GDU was responsible for the building and its landscape for a “topographical” museum about the most significant pre-Columbian archeological site in northern Mexico, which dates to ca. 700 CE. Intended to evoke archaeological remains, particularly kivas, the museum is organized around a central, circular, stone-clad patio that features a stepped watercourse animating the space and emptying into an angular pool. Paquimé was declared a World Heritage Site in 1998.
Cortadura Canal – Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Connecting the inland Carpintero Lagoon with the Pánuco River that flows to the Gulf of Mexico coast, this winding, one-mile-long, linear park covers approximately sixteen acres. Situated near the city’s historic center in the port city of Tampico, the park was the focus of a four-phase master plan (2004–2017). GDU redesigned the Cortadura Canal as a promenade transforming a marginalized housing settlement and industrial area into an inviting, continuous waterfront; the project turned around a depressed urban area.
Notable projects in the U.S. include the following:
Union Point Park – Oakland, CA. Schjetnan’s first project in the U.S. (2005), this nine-acre waterfront park with walking and biking paths integrated with the San Francisco Bay Trail is situated adjacent to a former industrial area transformed into a mixed-use residential neighborhood. The irregularly shaped, relatively level park is disrupted by a series of manmade dunes along the eastern boundary. Constructed from gravel and capped contaminated soil, the berms are swathed in native grasses and flowering shrubs.
Cornerstone Festival of Gardens – Small Tribute to Immigrant Workers – Sonoma, CA. This rectangular, 1,300-square foot plot tells the story of Mexican and Central American immigrants in the United States, highlighting the difficulties they face, and their importance to the Californian economy. There are three themed outdoor rooms defined by three walls of varying height. Photographs of the five immigrant workers who helped create the garden hang on one wall next to a shrine for the Virgin of Guadalupe and postcards from their hometowns in the Mexican state of Michoacán.
San Pedro Creek Culture Park – San Antonio, TX. A concrete-lined drainage ditch that serviced stormwater runoff in the city’s historic center and “Zona Cultural” was transformed into a linear park that gently curves south from North Santa Rosa Street to the Apache Creek. The watercourse is lined with limestone and flanked by curvilinear walkways, tiled benches, and local artists’ murals that capture the city’s history and historic figures. Immediately south of the flood control inlet at Santa Rosa Street, the Plaza de Fundación symbolizes the birth of water through “Rain from the Heavens” fountain, which flows southward to a sequence of various waterfalls, ponds, and irrigation ditches.
Statement by Charles A. Birnbaum, TCLF’s President and CEO
“For more than 50 years, Mario Schjetnan’s unwavering commitment to the idea of a human right to have access to open space and the necessity for incorporating cultural values in his work have served as foundational requirements in shaping and managing an equitable built environment for all. For many decades, Schjetnan he has held numerous academic appointments, and he and GDU have created a diverse and innovative body of projects, and advanced theories and initiated actions for creating a more just public realm.”
About the Oberlander Prize
The biennial Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize, which includes a $100,000 award and two years of public engagement activities, was created to increase the visibility, understanding, appreciation and conversation about landscape architecture. The New York Times called the prize’s namesake, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, the “grande dame of landscape architecture” and reported she was “one of the first landscape architects to speak passionately about climate change and was an early adopter of storm-water-management systems and green roofs.”
Creation of the Oberlander Prize began in 2014 amid TCLF’s efforts to prevent the demolition of the Frick Collection’s Russell Page-designed viewing garden on East 70th Street in New York City. “A lead million-dollar gift by TCLF Board Member Joan Shafran and her husband Rob Haimes, turned a dream into a possibility,” according to TCLF’s Birnbaum. “Financial support from additional donors,” he added, “including members of the 100 Women Campaign, along with key strategic advice from Jill Magnuson and other senior leadership at the Nasher Sculpture Center and Martha Thorne, former Executive Director of the Pritzker Prize, among others, helped the possibility become a reality.” The inaugural laureate, landscape architect Julie Bargmann, was announced on October 14, 2021, and the second laureate, Kongjian Yu, was announced on October 17, 2023.
As an Oberlander Prize laureate, significant built works by Schjetnan and GDU will be added to TCLF’s What’s Out There® database, which currently features more than 2,700 sites, 15,000 images, and 1,200 designer profiles. Their work and design philosophies will also serve as the curatorial inspiration for public engagement activities that will take place beginning in 2026.
Oberlander Prize Jury
The seven-person jury includes leading landscape architects, urban planners, architects, academics, and other experts from around the world: Jury Chair, Claire Agre, is a Partner and Cofounder of Unknown Studio Landscape Architecture & Urban Design, based in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.; Arthur Adeya is a co-founder of Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) and serves as Treasurer to the KDI Kenya Board in Nairobi, Kenya; Kirsten Bauer is the Global Design Director of ASPECT Studios, an international urban design, landscape architecture, living architecture, and wayfinding design practice in Melbourne, Australia; Ellen Braae has been a full professor of landscape architecture and urbanism at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark since 2009; Margarita Jover is a Professor of Architecture at Tulane University (New Orleans, LA, U.S.), co-director of the dual Master of Landscape Architecture and Engineering program, and co-founder of aldayjover, architecture and landscape in Barcelona, Spain; Sameep Padora is an architect and author who was born in Chamba, Northern India, and established his eponymous Mumbai-based practice in 2007; and Dorothy Tang, PhD, is a landscape architect and assistant professor in the Department of Architecture at the National University of Singapore. Oberlander Prize Curator Professor Elizabeth Mossop is Dean of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) School of Design, Architecture and Building in Australia and a landscape architect and urbanist with wide-ranging experience in both landscape design and urban planning.
About The Cultural Landscape Foundation
The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF), founded in 1998, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit founded in 1998 to connect people to places. TCLF educates and engages the public to make our shared landscape heritage more visible, identify its value, and empower its stewards. Through its website, publishing, lectures, and other events, TCLF broadens support and understanding for cultural landscapes. TCLF is also home to the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize.
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