AIA Chicago, the second-largest chapter of the American Institute of Architects, last night honored Cynthia Weese, FAIA, principal of Weese Langley Weese Architects, with the 2023 AIA Chicago Lifetime Achievement Award. For nearly 50 years, Weese has served the architectural profession as a reformer working to advance women in the field; as a design innovator in affordable housing, adaptive reuse, and educational facilities; and as an academic visionary. She was a later addition to the original all-male group known as the Chicago Seven, who supplanted rigid Midcentury Modernism through their design work and exhibitions. In 1974, Weese became a founding member of Chicago Women in Architecture, the groundbreaking forum advocating for women architects. Between 1993 and 2005, she served her alma mater as dean of the School of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, becoming the first woman to be a dean of any college there. She spoke with RECORD editor in chief Josephine Minutillo, who was a graduate architecture student at the school during the years that Weese served as its dean.
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