Astra Zarina

Astra Zarina (August 25, 1929 – August 31, 2008) was an architect and professor in the University of Washington Department of Architecture. She is best known for her creation of the University of Washington Italian Studies programs and her founding of the UW Rome Center. She is also the primary founder of the US nonprofit organization, The Civita Institute, also known in Italy as the Northwest Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in Italy (NIAUSI).

Biography

Zarina was born in Riga, Latvia. She came to the United States with her family after World War II and matriculated at the University of Washington in 1947. In the UW architecture program, she studied under faculty including Lionel Pries, Wendell Lovett, and Victor Steinbrueck. She completed her B.Arch. in 1953. After graduation she worked in the office of Paul Hayden Kirk and married architecture classmate Douglas Haner (1930–2011).

Zarina moved to Boston in 1954 and entered the architecture program at MIT; Haner enrolled at Harvard. At MIT, her thesis focused on retail design in Boston. Zarina and Haner both graduated in 1955 with M.Arch. degrees and went to work in the office of Minoru Yamasaki outside Detroit.

In 1960, Zarina won the American Academy in Rome Fellowship in Architecture; she was the first woman to be awarded the Academy's architecture fellowship.^[1] She subsequently won a Fulbright fellowship for study and travel in Italy. Zarina and Haner subsequently divorced.

Zarina first taught at the University of Washington in a part-time position in the mid-1960s. In 1970, in coordination with Architecture Department Chair, Professor Thomas Bosworth, Zarina hosted the first program in Rome for architecture students. Her first students included Steven Holl, Ed Weinstein and John Ullman. The Rome Program subsequently became a regular offering of the Department. Zarina was eventually appointed as an Associate Professor and she later became a professor. In 1976, Zarina taught the first summer Italian Hill Towns program (IHT) based in Civita di Bagnoregio.

In 1963, Zarina first visited Civita di Bagnoregio, a hill town in northern Lazio of Etruscan origin, located 80 miles north of Rome. She sought shelter from a rainstorm in a Renaissance 'sala grande' and was asked by the owner if she wanted to buy it. She did, and then continued to acquire and restore properties there. In 1971, Zarina, married her second husband Anthony Costa Heywood, also an architect, and they worked together to restore several houses in the ancient Italian hilltown of Civita di Bagnoregio.

1976 also saw publication of her book, co-authored with Balthazar Korab, on Rome's roofscapes, I tetti di Roma: Le terrazze, le altane, i belvedere. In 1979, Zarina received the University of Washington Distinguished Teaching Award. In 2023, Zarina was posthumously awarded the University of Washington's prestigious College of Built Environments Distinguished Faculty for Lifetime Achievement Award.

In the early 1980s, working with Gordon Varey, Dean of the College of Architecture and Urban Planning (now College of Built Environments), Zarina developed the idea for a permanent facility in Rome. By 1984, the Rome Center was established in the Palazzo Pio, located near Campo dei Fiori in the center of Rome. Zarina was director of the Rome Center until the mid-1990s. The UW Rome Center continues to house the Architecture in Rome programs, but also hosts programs from many other University of Washington departments and from other American architecture schools.

In 1981, continuing her work with Gordon Varey and other esteemed faculty of the University of Washington, leading architects in Seattle, Washington, and former students of the Italian Studies programs, Zarina formed the Northwest Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in Italy (NIAUSI). In 1982, NIAUSI became a 501.c.3 nonprofit, now called The Civita Institute.

Zarina retired from teaching about the year 2000 and lived full-time in Civita, continuing to promote its restoration. In 2007, Zarina and Heywood entered into an agreement with NIAUSI to donate their properties for use as a research center called The Civita Institute, in exchange for financial obligations and adoption of the mission to "inspire and foster an interdisciplinary understanding of the unique qualities of Italian hill towns that remain pertinent to our contemporary experience through the promotion of historic preservation, education and scholarly research, artistic creation, cultural exchange, and professional explorations."

The donation of the Zarina-Heywood estate was completed by Heywood and the Board of Directors of The Civita Institute in 2013. Zarina died in Civita di Bagnoregio in 2008. Heywood continues to reside in Civita enjoying a life-estate and other benefits of the donation.

Awards

• American Academy in Rome Fellowship^{[citation needed]}
• Fulbright fellowship^{[citation needed]}

References

External links

• American Academy in Rome, Society of Fellows
• MIT thesis on DSpace