2024-2025 Pub. 5 Issue 2

LEGEND Roger Jackson, FAIA INTERVIEWED BY FRAN PRUYN, CPSM As part of our ongoing series of interviews with architectural legends, we are proud to present this interview with Roger Jackson, FAIA. It was a pleasure to interview him and to learn more about his fascinating career and his thoughts on the industry. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Roger, when did you decide to become an architect? The day I said it out loud actually surprised me. My father was an architect. It didn’t stick with any of my siblings. I did a year of engineering at the University of Utah, then went on my LDS mission. Right before I left to come home, someone said, “What are you going to do?” I replied, “I’m thinking of going to architecture school.” I remember thinking, “Where did that come from?” I don’t know exactly. I came back from the mission, abandoned engineering and jumped into architecture full blast. What’s your bachelor’s degree in? I got a Bachelor of University Studies at the University of Utah, where you take everything you’ve done, bundle it together and call it a Bachelor of Stuff. I made up this little pre-architecture degree. I took all my engineering classes and then I took a basic design class, a couple of architecture classes, a couple of geography classes, a couple of art classes, and some other classes and made up this university studies degree. By itself, it is nearly nothing except to get into graduate school. And who influenced you at the University of Utah? I had John Sugden the most. I had him for a quarter in my fourth year, for a couple of quarters in my fifth year and a couple of times in my sixth year. I had him and Gordon Hashimoto a lot, but that was it. I figured out early that these guys were 12 REFLEXION

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