Cocktails & Conversations: Claire Weisz and James S. Russell

“You are marked by time, place, and news events, what was on television when you grew up, what you drive by, and walk by. What was in the American landscape was not what we were looking at in architecture school. The world of architecture was completely hermetically isolated. We looked at spaces that, for those of us who grew up in the middle of the prairies, had absolutely nothing to do with our prior experiences and natural environments. We figured out that our industry and nature were industrial, which really ran in the face of much of what we loved in architecture school. We learned that a building has to be more than a building. A landscape has to be more than a landscape. A railing has to be more than a railing. A sign has to be more than a sign. That’s what architecture is about.” - Claire Weisz