IFLA PRESIDENT’S awarD 2022
GLORIA APONTE

At an Award Ceremony during the 58th IFLA World Congress in Gwagju, Korea, IFLA President James Hayter announced landscape architect Gloria Aponte as the recipient of IFLA President’s Award.

The IFLA President’s Award is presented by the IFLA President as recognition of an outstanding individual who, through their voluntary efforts within IFLA, have made a fundamental difference to the global profession of landscape architecture.

Gloria has been active in IFLA since 1996. Gloria is a pioneer in landscape architecture education in the Americas. She has been the IFLA delegate of the Colombian Society of Landscape Architects, a member of the America’s Executive Committee and the president of her association, a member of IFLA’s Education Committee and part of a very successful program of Capacity Building in Africa. In all of these contributions we are grateful for the leadership, wisdom and organizational skills Gloria brings to IFLA, and particularly her ability to coordinate others contribution in an open, inclusive, collaborative and positive way.

Gloria has given her time tirelessly and to great effect. IFLA has gained in prestige and importance under her direction to the point where the federation is considered to be the pre-eminent forum for the sharing of knowledge and community within the landscape architecture profession globally. Gloria’s dedication, her integrity and passion for landscape architecture globally is exemplary and has resulted in great benefit to the profession.

It is with enormous pleasure that we celebrate the 2022 IFLA President’s Award to Gloria Aponte.

Gloria Aponte is Architect with a master degree in Landscape Design from the University of Sheffield, UK.

She is founder, partner and project manager of ECOTONO LTDA, developing for 20 years projects for the public and private sectors, at different landscape scales, areas and domains.

Gloria structured and designed the master degree programme in Landscape Design at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (Medellin, Colombia), in 2009; in which she had been principal for 8 years.

She has been a member of IFLA Americas Region Executive Committee as chair of the Education and Academic Affairs Committee, promoting landscape architecture education in Latin America.

Gloria was the creator of the EDAP programme, a diploma course for Educators in Landscape Architecture.

Gloria has participated in several national and international congresses as lecturer and has participated in publications about sustainability, environmental design and planning, social and cultural urbanism and the right to landscape.

Gloria was the founder and editor of the first 8 issues of the magazine Arquitectura de Paisaje (1989), the first one in Spanish in the world about landscape architecture).

She participated in the organisation of the IFLA World Congress 1991 in Cartagena, Colombia, and the IFLA Americas Regional Conference 2012 in Medellín, Colombia.

Currently, Gloria is an advisor to some renowned landscape architecture firms and conducts investigations related with landscape.

She is member of the investigation group Rastro Urbano (Urban Trace) at the University of Ibague, Colombia.

Gloria has being influencing her students, becoming the mentor of many of them.

“I remember when I started the Master's Degree in Landscape Design at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellín, Colombia; I was nervous about meeting that person who, due to her warmness, joy and proactivity, guided and interviewed me during the admission process to the master degree programme, at a university that became for three years my alma mater. When I saw her I knew that her presence in my life would be very important, she took me to meet my classmates and that welcoming gesture was the starting point to turn our relationship into the most significant academic and personal exchange in my learning process.

Gloria Aponte García, my professor, mentor and friend, at that moment was already a recognized personality in the field of landscape architecture at an international level. She was the promoter of the only active Master's Degree in Landscape Design in our country. In its essence this postgraduate program reflects her knowledge, her academic career, her professional experience, her gift for enriching our minds and vision of the world from the landscape perspective, and her ability to build invaluable bridges between the profession of landscape architecture and other disciplines; but what moves me the most and remains latent over the years, is her sensitivity, her ability to see beyond the immediate and her ability to recognize the potential of we, her apprentices; who today, project part of her sense in our professional work as landscape designers.

Dear Gloria, you will never get to know the legacy you sow during the training process of your lucky students who, like me, practice our profession with the soul. Thank you for opening increasingly friendly paths to the new generations of landscape architects and for transforming the landscape we inhabit with your knowledge.”

Warmly,

Valentina Hidalgo Montoya, landscape architect

Manizales, August 24th 2022

For further information, please contact: chair.cer@iflaworld.org