Lucka Ažman Momirski (1961 – 2024)

Our dear friend Lučka, an architect and professor of Urban Design at the University of Ljubljana, is present in our lives. Ever since I met her (Maruja, Peruvian anthropologist, ITLA member), at the First International Conference on Terraced Landscapes held in 2010 in Mengzi, Yunnan, China, Lučka’s interventions impressed me because they radiated a sincere appreciation and commitment to the skills and wisdom of terraced landscape creators. Her friendly and dialoguing character contributed to establishing a fluid source of mutual synergies, as founder of the ITLA Network Alliance, with many other participants.

In my specific case (Lidia, Canarian geographer from ITLA) and despite the language barrier that separated us, we exchanged ties of work, affection and mutual admiration. I will never forget the first time I saw your spectacular photo gallery of terraced landscapes of your beautiful little country, Slovenia, in that imposing hall with an Inka Stone wall of the municipality of Cusco, just 10 years ago.

Lučka was a landscape architect of exceptional sensitivity, capable of valuing the architectural work, landscapes and territories, as well as the prominence of its builders and caretakers. A tireless worker, she participated in all phases of the organization of the international terrace congresses, from the selection of themes, actions, fieldwork areas, to the scientific work linked to the reception of the works be presented, to their publication. In the last ten years she has actively contributed to the definition of the editorial line of the themes that were addressed and incorporated in each edition of the international congresses, thus promoting a rich exchange of ideas and practices. She selected articles with her scientific excellence from relevant debates that emerged from the Congresses in Peru (2014), Italy (2016) and the Canary Islands (2019). As editor-in-chief of ITLA’s three journals (Journal of Terraced Landscapes JOTL, ITLA Journal and ITLA Art Journal) she was a woman committed to the continuity of this network of actors of many nationalities and professions, linked by the defense of the world’s terraced landscapes. Lučka nurtured a growing network of authors who contributed to giving new meanings to terraced landscapes by overcoming the gaze that focuses on dry stone walls built for functional or aesthetic purposes. The openness of ideas assumed by Lučka in the coordination of the different volumes of ITLA as a virtual publication (see in http://itla.si) became a cradle of new pluralistic and multiple forms of knowledge and practices for the transformation of hillsides into gardens of biodiversity, as well as new paths for alternative forms of human life gaining autonomy to rethink and imagine the future.

Dear Lučka, you contributed to laying the foundations of ITLA as a social movement that includes local guardians and activists, university students and professors, children, young people and the elderly, a wide number of professionals and scientists from very diverse disciplines and we are eternally grateful. For us, your life symbolizes fruitful terraced landscapes for future generations.

It’s hard for us to think that we won’t see you with us visiting new old terraced landscapes. Visits planned to connect with its inhabitants, who are encouraged to continue with their work as custodians of those spaces inherited from our ancestors and from which such good harvests have been obtained throughout their history. Someday we will succeed in declaring and institutionalizing the European Day of Terraced Landscapes and, given its abundant presence on all continents and many of the world’s mountainous islands, World Terraced Landscape Day. Until that day comes, there is a lot of research-assessment and dissemination work to continue doing. You’re gone so soon, friend. But you will always be with us.

Maruja Salas and Lidia E. Romero Martín (guest editors of the JOTL on Women and Platforms)