Background
Zarina was born in Riga, Latvia.
Zarina was born in Riga, Latvia.
In the UW architecture program she studied under faculty including Lionel Pries, Wendell Lovett, and Victor Steinbrueck. She completed her Bachelor of Architecture in 1953. Zarina moved to Boston in 1954 and entered the architecture program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Her husband enrolled at Harvard.
Zarina and Haner both graduated in 1955 with Master in Architecture
She is best known for her creation of the University of Washington Italian Studies programs and her founding of the UW Rome Center. She came to the United States with her family after World World War II and matriculated at the University of Washington in 1947. degrees and went to work in the office of Minoru Yamasaki outside Detroit. Zarina and Haner subsequently divorced.
Zarina first taught at the University of Washington in a part-time position in the mid-1960s.
In 1970, in coordination with Architecture Department Chair, Professor Thomas Bosworth, Zarina hosted the first program in Rome for architecture students. Her first students included Steven Holl and Editor Weinstein.
The Rome Program subsequently became a regular offering of the Department. Zarina was eventually appointed as an Associate Professor and she later became a professor
In 1976, Zarina taught the first summer program on Italian Hilltowns based in Civita di Bagnoregio.
1976 also saw publication of her book, co-authored with Balthazar Korab, on Rome"s roofscapes, I tetti di Roma: Le terrazze, le altane, i belvedere. In the early 1980s, working with Gordon Varey, Dean of the College of Architecture and Urban Planning (now College of Built Environments), Zarina developed the idea for a permanent facility in Rome. By 1984 the Rome Center was established in the Palazzo Pio, located near the center of Rome.
Zarina was director of the Rome Center until the mid-1990s.
The UW Rome Center continues to house the Architecture in Rome programs, but also hosts programs from many other University of Washington departments and from other American architecture schools. Zarina retired from teaching about the year 2000.
She lived her last years in Civita, continuing to promote its restoration. She died there in August 2008.