12 REFLEXION | 2021-22 | AIA Utah Allen Roberts, FAIA Interviews with Local Legends Cooper/Roberts Architects (now CRSA) was founded in 1976 as the only architectural firm in the region to specialize in architectural design for historic buildings. In this interview, Allen Roberts talks about his particular interests and specialties — history, architecture, painting, and writing, how his career unfolded, and how influential Wally Cooper was to it. Now, Allen has become recognized as a notable architect, architectural historian, author, gallery owner and fine artist. Not surprisingly, he had difficulty narrowing down his interests in the beginning. When did you decide to become an architect? Unlike Wally Cooper, my partner for forty-something years who in junior high school decided to be an architect,I started attending university without any idea of what I wanted to become. I just started taking classes (at Brigham Young University) in what I was interested in. I was just having a great time being a liberal arts student with no occupation in mind at all. I did that the first year, and the second year, and the third year, and finally, they sent me to a counselor, who said, “What’s your major?” I said, “I don’t have a major. I am just taking subjects I am interested in.” He said, “You can’t graduate in nothing; you have to pick something.” It came time to register for the next semester, and they had come out with a new two-inch catalog of courses. I am standing in line there reading through it, and I see that they have a new Environmental Design Department and it had an architecture major. I thought: “Architecture.” I had always loved art and design, and before becoming a college student, I had worked summers with my father, a builder. I thought art and design and construction — that is architecture. “Why don’t I study architecture?” After BYU, Allen went to the University of Utah for graduate education. He worked in Provo for a number of design firms, but his first employment after college was at the State Historical Society. I have always loved fine art, history and writing. I always found it comfortable to do. When we had to do term papers, I would think, “Oh, great, I get to do research and write something.” The job at the Historical Society was a natural. For three years, I was the state architectural historian, and that is when I met Wally. Both of us had some years working in architects’ offices. We met when he was assigned by his employer to work on the Capitol Theater remodel, and I was the historical architect administering the grant to restore the theatre. In conversation, we both decided to leave our current employment and start a new firm. When was this? May 1976. We rented a $30-a-month dusty space in the Guthrie Cycle Building. We had one client, which was a $300 gas station remodel. We basically had no clients. Other than
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