Cynthia Weese, a prolific Chicago architect and educator whose built work spans from church renovations to museum expansions to affordable housing projects, has been named as the 2023 recipient of AIA Chicago’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Eighty-three year-old Weese, heralded by 2023 AIA Chicago President Mindy Viamontes as a “trailblazer in the field for architecture [whose] influence will continue to inspire female leaders for generations to come,” joins past Lifetime Achievement awardees including Natalie deBlois (2010), Helmut Jahn (2012), Stanley Tigerman (2013), Carol Ross Barney (2017), and her husband and professional partner Ben Weese (2011), with whom she founded Weese Langley Weese Architects in 1977. Early in her career, Cynthia Weese was the sole female member of the (expanded) Chicago Seven movement of which her husband—younger brother of the late Harry Weese—was one of the original members.