Dunja Richter

Dunja Richter

Postdoctoral Researcher

Dunja Richter is a landscape architect and garden historian. Since completing her studies at the Dresden University of Technology, she has been working both as a freelancer and as an employee in Switzerland and Germany. She joined for three years the Department of Historic Garden Preservation at the State Palaces and Gardens of Hesse. From 2013–2014 she was employed part-time as a project leader at the Department of Urban Planning at the City of Zurich. Already 2009 she joined the Chair of Prof. Christophe Girot at ETH Zurich. As a senior researcher, Dunja Richter was engaged in the development of the new two-year Master of Science ETH in Landscape Architecture from 2017–2021. Since 2019 she has directed the ETH degree program initiative as a project leader, in close collaboration with the Department of Educational Development and Technology (LET), and worked as the master’s program manager.

Her main research and teaching focus on the history of landscape architecture, with a concentration on exchange processes, the meanings and the uses of plants in the context of a growing globalization. She contributed to the SNF project “Enzyklopädie zum gestalteten Raum” (Prof. Dr. Vittorio M. Lampugnani), as well as the SCPA project “Landscape, myths and technology” (Prof. Christian Sumi, Università della Svizzera italiana USI). In addition to her teaching activities at the ETH Dunja Richter was guest lecturer at Academy of Architecture Mendrisio, University of Innsbruck, TU Berlin, TU Dresden, Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Kyoto University of Art and Design and others. Since 2019 she is a lecturer and module coordinator in the CAS Garden Monument Preservation at the Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences. With book contributions and journal articles, she contributes to the evocation of critical discourses. She is co-editor of Topology – Topical Thoughts on the Contemporary Landscape (Landscript 3) and co-author of Topologie/Topology (pamphlet 15).

Dunja Richter holds a PhD concerning the plant trade of the Zurich Botanical Garden in the 19th century, which was honoured by ETH Zurich. Currently she is working on the accompanying book project. She also teaches the lecture series Landscapes and Gardens as Cultural Heritage in the ETH Master’s programmes in Architecture and Landscape Architecture.