Mia Lehrer

Mia Lehrer, born Mía Guttfreund (San Salvador, El Salvador), is a Salvadoran American landscape architect. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Tufts University with a degree in environmental design and a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. Lehrer is one of the first professionals to incorporate both of her degrees to design sustainable landscapes.

Biography Mía Guttfreund was born in the first half of the 1950s in San Salvador, capital of El Salvador. She is the daughter of German Jewish refugees who fled to Latin America because of Nazi persecution. Her parents did not have high school qualifications, but her father was able to find success in the export business. Her childhood would inspire her work later in life. She would later say that "nature was always present and palpable" and that she "was always aware of it and it was always on [her] mind." She also recalled how DDT had damaged coastal ecosystems and was impacted when experts worked to help reverse the damage. In the late 1970s, El Salvador was facing worsening political conflicts and Lehrer's father urged her to leave the country and complete her undergraduate studies in the United States. a landscape architecture firm based in Los Angeles, California. Her breakthrough to public work was her work on the 2000 master plan for the Silver Lake Reservoir. Notable projects include the Annenberg Community Beach House, the revitalization of the San Pedro Waterfront, and 3.5 acres of outdoor gardens for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. She designed Vista Hermosa Park, which was the first new public park in downtown Los Angeles in 100 years. More recently, Leher has been involved with the design and building of complex large-scale infrastructural projects. Lehrer was a key author of the 2007 Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan and has been working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the City of Los Angeles, and community groups on related reviving efforts for nearly 20 years. In 2010 she was named a fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects. on First and Broadway in Los Angeles. Her design proposal was among the four finalists.

In 2015, Lehrer served as one of six selection committee members for the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence.

Lehrer was appointed to the Board of Water and Power Commissioners by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on September 24, 2020, and was confirmed by the Council on October 21, 2020, for a term lasting until June 30, 2024.

In 2021, Lehrer's Studio-MLA was selected to design the new Community Park as part of the Fair Park Master Plan in Dallas, Texas in partnership with Studio Outside of Dallas, architect Allison Grace Williams and Dallas architects buildingcommunityWORKSHOP as the core design team.

By 2022, Lehler designed the gardens of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, scheduled to open in 2025.

Lehrer is also a lecturer at the University of Southern California's School of Architecture.

Awards 2021 Cooper Hewitt National Design Awards, Landscape Architecture, Mia Lehrer Merit Award for Institutional Design from the American Society of Landscape Architects, Southern California Chapter - for their design of the North Campus Garden at the Natural History Museum LA Design Festival ICON Award 2015 ASLA 2009 Professional Awards- Analysis and Planning Category Honor Award - for Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan, Los Angeles, CA

Projects