Berjman, Sonia, 1946-

Sonia Berjman (born 1946) is an urban and landscape historian, researcher on the history of Buenos Aires public space and protector of parks, squares, and public green spaces of that city, she is an acknowledged referent for these issues. She published more than a hundred texts and articles (including more than 20 books) in both academic and popular media, installing the study of landscape history in her native country. She holds two PhDs: one from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), and another from Pantheon-Sorbonne University, and continued postdoctoral studies at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection of Harvard University. She was a researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) and at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, as well as professor at the national universities of Tucumán, Mar del Plata, and the Northeast. She is also a member of councils, commissions, and scientific committees in Argentina and abroad. A great connoisseur of landscaper Carlos Thays and his son Carlos León Thays lives and works, Berjman has written detailed bibliographies on them. In 2014 her book Los Paseos Públicos de Buenos Aires y la labor de Carlos León Thays (h) entre 1922 y 1946 was declared of cultural interest of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (Declaration 98/2014). In 2009 she curated the exhibition Carlos Thays, un jardinero francés en Buenos Aires at the Centro Cultural Recoleta organized by the Buenos Aires City government, the Mairie de Paris and the French Embassy in Argentina, this exhibition was visited by 50,000 persons in one month. Landscape is a mental construction, made possible by man's outlook towards a piece of territory. In the end, it is the reflection of our ideological views, exterior and interior, pragmatic and artistic, representations as physical objects, states of the soul as vital needs. Landscape is equal to world.