B.S. Landscape Architecture, Penn State; Research M.Arch, Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow; M.Arch, Princeton University
Julia Czerniak, RLA, ASLA is professor of architecture at Syracuse University where she teaches studios as well as seminars on landscape theory and criticism. Czerniak is educated both as an architect and landscape architect and her research and practice draw on the intersection of these disciplines. She is also the creative director at CLEAR, an interdisciplinary design practice that focuses on urban landscapes in Rust Belt cities.
Although the techniques, scales and products of her research vary, Czerniak’s work focuses on the physical and cultural potentials of urban landscapes. Recent design research advances landscape as a protagonist in the remaking of Rust Belt cities, from a series of public space interventions along a derelict creek to ecologically and spatially rich streetscapes for a newly planned campus of Syracuse University.
Czerniak’s work as a designer is complemented by her work as educator and writer, which in all cases advances design as both a way to enable new ways of seeing, imagining, valuing and acting within our challenged anthropocentric environment and the agent of a socially and ecologically rich public realm. Large Parks (Princeton Architectural Press) and Case: Downsview Park Toronto (Prestel) focus on contemporary design approaches to public parks and the relationship between landscape and cities. Formerly Urban: Projecting Rust Belt Futures (Princeton Architectural Press) examines potential futures for shrinking cities. Other writings include essays in Third Coast Atlas (Actar); Wiley-Blackwell Companion to the History of Architecture (Wiley & Sons); Landscape Infrastructure (Birkhauser); Landscape Alchemy: The Work of Hargreaves Associates (ORO Editions); Fertilizers: Olin Eisenman (Institute for Contemporary Art,); Landscape Urbanism (Princeton Architectural Press); Assemblage 34 (MIT Press) and Harvard Design Magazine. Czerniak lectures and teaches internationally, most recently delivering keynote lectures at the Onassis Foundation in Athens, the Large Parks in Large Cities conference in Stockholm, the Open Space Summit in Brussels and the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects annual conference.
Grants and Awards
- Mayor’s Institute on City Design, East Regional Session, Fall 2014
- 2012 Arts and Architecture Alumni Award, Spring 2012, Penn State University, Department of Landscape Architecture
- Art Institute of Chicago, Community Associates Fellow, Fall 2011
- Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Fall 2010
- Judith Greenberg Seinfeld Distinguished Fellowship Award, Syracuse University, Spring 2008
- The J.B. Jackson Book Prize, for Large Parks, Spring 2008
- Winner, The Young Architects Forum, Spring 2000
- Sponsored by The Architectural League of New York.
Publications
Books
- Editor, Formerly Urban: Projecting Rust Belt Futures (Princeton Architectural Press, 2013)
- Editor, Large Parks (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007)
- Editor, CASE: Downsview Park Toronto (New York: Harvard University Graduate School of Design & Prestel, 2001)
Essays
- “As-Built: Elevating Engagement Work” Third Coast Atlas (Barcelona: Actar, Fall 2015) submitted
- “La Villette and its Afterlife” Wiley-Blackwell Companion to the History of Architecture, David Leatherbarrow and Alexander Eisenschmidt, eds. (New Jersey: Wiley & Sons, Spring 2015) submitted
- “Liquid Assets: Landscape, Water and Urban Change” American City “X” (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, Fall 2014
- “Landscape’s M.O.” Formerly Urban: Projecting Rust Belt Futures (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, Spring 2013
- “Critics on Criticism: Landscape Work” Harvard Design Magazine 36, Landscape Architecture’s Core? Fall 2012
- “Foregrounding” Landscape Infrastructure: Case Studies by SWA (Basel: Birkhauser, 2010) 20-23)
- “Accumulations” Urbanisms of Color, New Geographies Vol. 3, fall 2010 (Harvard University Graduate School of Design)
- “Agency by Design” Hargreaves: The Alchemy of Landscape Architecture (Philadelphia: ORO Editions, 2009) 164-169
- “Doing More with Less” Lab Report: Phoenix Urban Research Lab (Phoenix: ASU College of Design, 2008) 40-47
- “Introduction / Speculating on Size” Large Parks, Julia Czerniak, ed. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007) 16-31
- “Legibility and Resilience” Large Parks, Julia Czerniak, ed. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007) 214-251
- “Landscape’s Architectural Logics: the Eisenman/Olin Projects” Fertilizers: Olin Eisenman (Philadelphia: Institute for Contemporary Art, 2006) 10-19
- “Appearance and Performance” CASE: Downsview Park Toronto, Julia Czerniak, ed. (New York: Harvard University Graduate School of Design & Prestel, 2001) 12-23
- “Looking Back at Landscape Urbanism: Speculations on Site” The Landscape Urbanism Reader, Charles Waldheim, ed. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press 2006) 105-123; Also in Proceedings: 88th ACSA Annual Meeting (Los Angeles: 2000)
- “Challenging the Pictorial: Recent Landscape Practice” Assemblage 34 (MIT Press: February 1998)
Reviews
- Measuring Influence: James Corner & the Search for a Discipline, Review of The Landscape Imagination: Collected Essays of James Corner 1990–2010, James Corner and Alison Bick Hirsch, editors (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2014) in Landscape Architecture Magazine, September 2014, Vol 104, no 9, 136-142.
- Landscape Urbanism: A Manual for the Machinic Landscape, Mohsen Mostafavi, Ciro Najlo, ed., (London: Architectural Association, 2003) and Delta Primer: a field guide to the California Delta, Jane Wolff(William Stout, 2003) joint review in Journal of Architectural Education, 2005 May, v.58, n.4, p.64-66
Administration and Service
- Associate Dean, Syracuse Architecture, Syracuse University, 2014-2022
- Director, UPSTATE, Syracuse Architecture, Syracuse University, 2007-2012
