Waisman was born in
Buenos Aires. She graduated as an architect from the
National University of Córdoba in 1944. She was a professor at the same university from 1948, when the first Chair of Contemporary Architecture was created, until 1971. Between 1956 and 1959, she taught at
National University of Tucumán with Enrico Tedeschi and Francisco Bullrich, creating Instituto Interuniversitario de Historia de Arquitectura (IIDEHA; Interuniversity Institute of History of Architecture). In 1974, she joined the Faculty of Architecture of the
Catholic University of Cordoba where she formed the Instituto de Historia y Preservación del Patrimonio (Institute of History and Heritage Preservation; now called the Marina Waisman Institute). She founded and developed Seminarios de Arquitectura Latinoamericana (SAL; Latin American Architecture Seminar) in 1985 in Buenos Aires. In 1987, she was awarded the America Prize for her work and critical contributions to Latin American architecture. In 1980, in collaboration with Freddy Guidi and Teresa Sassi, she worked on the recovery and restoration of the Municipal Museum José Malanca (today Centro Cultural España Córdoba). In 1991, she was appointed professor emeritus of the National University of Córdoba. The following year, she returned to the National University of Córdoba, creating there the Center for Research Training in History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture, now called the Marina Waisman Center. She was a member of the
Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes de Argentina. Waisman died in 1997 in
Río Cuarto, Córdoba. ==Selected works==