Beginnings When did you decide to become an architect? I was in college. I had never met an architect; I had no architects in my family or in my familiar world. I studied lots of different subjects throughout my education, searching for that thing that was going to be my professional direction, something I was passionate about. I took classes in psychology, sociology and philosophy, and I ended up with a business degree sort of by default. Then I took a class in architecture, and it changed my life. Tom Kass at the University of Utah taught a lot of our Utah architects. His colleague, Gail Della-Piana, was my professor. She really did change my life. I remember sitting in the studio drawing a detail of the rose window of the Cathedral of the Madeleine. I worked on just that for hours and then days. She really taught me how to see things in a completely new way. I knew it would inform my direction. This was in the 1980s, and I was well into my education, so I couldn’t switch to architecture. At that time, Utah just had a graduate program. So, I finished my degree in business and then I immediately started pursuing architecture. I moved to Los Angeles and started taking LEGENDS Anne Mooney, FAIA INTERVIEW BY FRAN PRUYN, CPSM As part of our ongoing series of interviews with architectural legends, we are proud to present this interview with Anne Mooney. It was a pleasure to interview her and to learn more about all the contributions she has made to the industry. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. night classes at UCLA. I took a course at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, titled “Making and Meaning” with Gary Paige, to build my portfolio. Gary Paige taught us that architecture was walking around with your eyes open. That didn’t make sense to me at the time, but after practicing architecture for decades, I realized this is what architecture is about. It’s about paying attention and noticing details in our environment. The most important skill we have as architects is to really listen, pay attention and notice things, and then translate that into architecture. My portfolio, at the time, was all handmade. I made the paper in my portfolio in a Japanese paper-making class. I used roofing tar paper for the cover and then delivered it to different graduate schools. I thought living in New York would be a completely different experience for someone who grew up in the West, in Montana, Utah and California. I went to Columbia in New York to study. The school was great, and living in proximity to all those 8 REFLEXION
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