Book showcase at Palazzo San Niccolo, Florence, Italy
Book Lectures and Presentations
Literary Lecture Series, Heliconian Club, Toronto Lecture and Book Signing, “The Universal Themes of Tuscan Daughter” January 12, 2023
Private Book Club, Toronto Feb. 17, 2023
Private Book Club, Toronto, Feb. 7, 2022
Milan and Florence, Book Signings, La Moglie del Mercante di Stoffe, Release of the Italian translation and publication of Tuscan Daughter, and Italian audio book, November, 2021
AGO Educators, “Revealing the human side of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Lisa Gherardini” Nov. 17, 2021
University of Toronto Continuing Education, “Would Mona Lisa Please Stand Up?” Going inside the mind of Lisa Gherardini, and seeing the Renaissance through the Female Gaze. Nov. 24, 2021
Private Book Club, Toronto Nov. 25, 2021
St. Lawrence Supper Club, Lecture and Book Signing “What it took to research and write Tuscan Daughter” Sold out. Nov. 29, 2021
Private Book Club, Oakville Oct. 6, 2021
CBC Radio, Here & Now, August 3, 2021 Interview with Host
Italian Cultural Institute, Sept. 7, 2021, On stage interview with ICI Director Veronica Manson, Lecture and Reading by NY-based actress and audio book narrator Carlotta Brentan
Book Launch, Tuscan Daughter, Private Venue, Toronto, July 20, 2021
The Istituto Italiano di Cultura Toronto is pleased to present the novel Tuscan Daughter by Canadian author, cultural commentator and award-winning architecture critic, Lisa Rochon.
Tuesday, September 7, 2021 | 6:30PM
Alliance Française | Spadina Theatre
24 Spadina Road | Toronto, ON
The author will be available to sign books after the presentation and the reading
Free Event | Registration required
CLICK HERE STARTING WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25 TO REGISTER ON EVENTBRITE
AGO, Toronto
On stage at the Art Gallery of Ontario in conversation with architect Frank Gehry and American architecture critic, Paul Goldberger.
Citylab’s Lisa Rochon led a two-day design charrette on the urgent need to SHIFT Car Culture with creative visions from top architecture and landscape architecture students. Cycle Toronto also joined the charrette. Participants included Jack Mosquite (Guelph University), Florencio IV Tameta (Ryerson University), Michael Wideman (University of Toronto), Siena Turnbull (Guelph University).
Gala Speaker, Master of Ceremonies, RAIC International Prize 2019
Honouring architecture inspired by equality, humanity and design innovation, the $100,000 Prize was awarded to Siamak Hariri for his Bahai Temple set within the Andean foothills outside of Santiago, Chile. Short-listed projects by Toshiko Mori, USA, and Barclay & Crousse, Peru.
Member, International Advisory Board, McEwen School of Architecture 2018 - 2021
The International Advisory Board consists of external members who will provide high-level strategic advice to the Director relating to and ensuring the long-term goals and success of the School. Current board members include: Lisa Rochon, Marianne McKenna, Bruce Mau, Alfred Waugh, Cheryl and Rob McEwen, Dee Dee Taylor Hannah, Blaine Nichols, David Lickley, Rick Hansen and Jason McLennan. Goals for the McEwen School of Architecture in Sudbury, Canada include continuing to enhance the student experience, growing the student body to over 360 students, receiving the second stage of professional accreditation and securing more than 30 faculty and staff by September 2018. McEwen International Advisory Board members will provide insight, ideas and resources to assist the School in developing strategic initiatives to advance its mission in further establishing a unique, cutting-edge architecture program whose graduates will contribute to socio-economic and cultural development in the Northern latitudes across Canada and around the world.
Juror, Fall, 2020 & Moderator of Sudbury2050 International Urban Design Competition, Nov. 23, 2020
100 teams from around the world competed to revision an economically diverse, vibrant downtown. Short-listed teams by a 15-person jury privileged economic diversity, rewilding of railways and parking lots, Indigenous-led process and reconciliation through design, housing for low-income and seniors, and daylighting of Junction Creek. The designs apply to Sudbury, a mining town once home to 5000 mining operations and lake toxicity and air pollution so great that the Sudbury Unit of Pollution was created. Since then, the healing of the landscape and waters has been profound, but the downtown still feels disconnected and soulless. Many of the design strategies could be applied to northern cities around the world.
Award Nominator, Aga Khan Award for Architecture, 2019 Award Cycle
Award Nominators are a select group of individuals chosen for their profound understanding of today’s built environment and their history with the Award. Only those projects, which are submitted by
Nominators are presented to the Master Jury. Although any individual can submit a project directly to the Award office, these projects are considered only if they have the endorsement of an official Nominator.
The fourteenth cycle of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture spans the three-year period from 2017 to 2019. To be eligible for the 2019 Award cycle, projects must have been completed between 1st January 2012 and
31st December 2017 and have been in use for at least one full year.
Grand Opening: Venice Biennale for Architecture
May 24, 2018
"Unceded" the All-Indigenous Pavilion representing Canada within the Arsenale, Venice, Italy
Prairie Design Awards
Design Juror, April 23 2018
Hosted by The Alberta Association of Architects, The Saskatchewan Association of Architects and The Manitoba Association of Architects.
Winterstations
Design Jury Chair, 2016, 2017, 2018
Lisa served as Design Jury Chair for Winter Stations international competition, which received approximately 250 submissions each year. Winter Stations calls for reinventions of lifeguard stands along the eastern beaches in Toronto and, as temporary pop-ups, are installed for six weeks during the winter. for the international competitors short-listed for the Canadian Canoe Museum.
Design Jury Chair, 2015
Lisa served as Chair of the Architect Selection Committee for the short-listed international competitors from Canada and abroad. The committee members included the Chief of Curve Lake First Nations, representatives from Parks Canada, the Canadian Canoe Museum, Peterborough City staff, and CCM board members. The winners, heneghan peng architects (Dublin) in joint venture with Kearns Mancini Architects (Toronto) were announced to the public early 2016. Their museum is a work of land-architecture, emerging from the sloped site, with a grand east facing elevation overlooking the Peterborough Lift Locks and the Trent Severn Waterway, both National Historic Sites.
Art Gallery of Ontario
2016
In 2016, at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Lisa was featured on stage in conversation with Frank Gehry and his biographer, American architecture critic, Paul Goldberger.
Video of that Conversation here
Global Cities Institute, University of Toronto
2013 - ongoing, Senior Fellow
Revell Helsinki Toronto
2010
Lisa was a team organizer of “Revell Helsinki Toronto” held at Toronto City Hall in September 2010 and moderated the symposium, as well as interviewing Frank Gehry on stage as part of that event.
Architecture in Public
2009
In December 2009, she spoke at “Architecture in Public,” a two-day workshop sponsored by the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University.
Keynote Speaker
Various Events
Lisa has delivered numerous keynotes, including “Toronto, the Global Supermarket”, “Supersizing the Vision” and “Reconstructing Devastated Cities”.