Elisa Silva

Elisa Silva is Associate Professor at Florida International University FIU at the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab and the Department of Architecture. Her research and practice challenge prejudiced narratives that support spatial inequality and mine resources to improve livelihoods and environments in territories such as Latin American self-built neighborhoods or barrios, and other underrepresented communities, urban rivers, and agricultural rural landscapes.

Elisa is an American-Venezuelan architect, with a Master of Architecture from Harvard GSD. She has received the Rome Prize from the American Academy, the Wheelwright Fellowship from Harvard, two Graham Foundation Grants, the Lucas Artist Fellowship and the Afield Fellowship. She is co-author of CABA: Cartography of the Caracas barrios (2014) and author of Pure Space: Expanding the Public Sphere through Public Space Transformations in Latin American Spontaneous Settlements (Actar, 2020). Her writings have also been published by Park Books, Birkhäuser, Actar, Arquine, Metropolis Magazine, Azure, Brooklyn Rail, Rassegna di Architettura e Urbanistica, NESS.doc, forA on the Urban, Manifest Journal and Venezuelan journals. Elisa was the Cesar Pelli Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Illinois in 2024, and she has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Princeton University, the University of Toronto, the Simón Bolívar University and the Central University in Venezuela.

Elisa is principal and founder of Enlace Arquitectura, a professional practice in architecture, urban design and landscape architecture and Enlace Foundation, an NGO that promotes cultural and educational programs of social inclusion and participatory design collaborations. Notable projects include the Annex Casa de Todos, a community cultural center in the barrio La Palomera and the River Guaire linear park, both in Caracas, and reforestation and water catchment interventions in Agua del Espino Oaxaca Mexico. This work has been supported with grants from the Swiss, French and United States Embassies in Venezuela, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Harvard University David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Roma Burgau Germany, Akat Foundation and private donations.

Enlace's work has been recognized in the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize, the Biennale di Venezia, the Chicago Architecture Biennial, and Arc en Rêve in Bordeaux France, Centro Cultural Parque de España en Rosario Argentina, and the X Chilean Architecture Biennial. The San Juan María Vianney Church in Media Legua and the Sabana Grande Boulevard in Caracas were awarded in the XI and VII Iberoamerican Biennial.