Guatemala: María Fernanda Sánchez

Raised in Guatemala City, Guatemala, María Fernanda Sánchez is co-founder and deputy director of Estudio Urbano, a firm located in Guatemala City, Guatemala, that provides architecture, urban planning, and landscape architecture services rooted in cultural continuity and human-scale environments. She holds a diploma in architecture from the Francisco Marroquin University in Guatemala City (1995), and a master’s in architecture from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana (2000); she has also completed theological studies.

Sánchez is co-founder of the Society for Civic Art. She has been a guest lecturer at the Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala City; the University of Notre Dame; Judson University in Elgin, Illinois; Andrews University  in Berrien Springs, Michigan; Yale University  in New Haven, Connecticut; the Seaside Institute in Seagrove Beach, Florida; the Pontifical Urban University (Pontificia Universitá Urbaniana) in Vatican City, Rome, Italy; the Complutense University  in Madrid, Spain; and the Alhóndiga de Granaditas in Guanajuato, México. She has also been a visiting professor, lecturer, and member of juries at summer academies in countries including Italy, Spain, Netherlands, México, Brazil, and the U.S.

Sánchez has served on the Architecture Advisory Council of the University of Notre Dame, the board of the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation, and the board of the Citymakers Collective. She is a member of the International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture, and Urbanism (INTBAU) College of Traditional Practitioners, under the Royal Patronage of His Majesty King Charles III, and serves on the institution’s selection committee.

She has had her work exhibited around the world, including the Chelsea Old Town Hall in London, England; Palazzo dei Papi in Viterbo, Italy; the Villa Falconieri in Frascati, Italy; the Pontificial Urban University; the Royal Institute of British Architects in London; the Hall of Casts at Walsh Family Hall of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame; the Gran Salón Azaria in Cayalá, Guatemala; the University of Bologna in Bologna, Italy; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami, Florida; the Snite Museum of Art in South Bend; and the El Sitio Gallery in Antigua, Guatemala.

Sánchez received the Orlando T. Maione Award from the School of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame (2021), the CNU Charter Award from the Congress of New Urbanism (2021), the Arthur Ross Award from the Classical Institute of Architecture in New York (2016), the Acanthus Award of Areté and Acanthus Award from the Chicago Midwest Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art in Chicago (2015), the International Making Cities Livable (IMCL) Award from International Making Cities Livable in Bristol, England (2015), the Ferguson, Shamamian, and Rattner Graduate Award from the United of Notre Dame (2000), and numerous awards in design competitions.