07/21/2024
Cynthia “Cindy” Rogers Weese
“It's deja vu all over again.” An apropos “Yogi Berra-ism” for this story.
I’ve come across yet another Davenport (Central) High School grad* who made it big in architecture and in Chicago, that city renowned for its cityscape.
Here’s Cindy Rogers, 1958 DHS graduate with architecture school in her future. And there’s Cynthia Weese, FAIA, honored with the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
One and the same, Cindy and Cynthia. There’s no mistaking that smile.
It’s easy to see why Cynthia reached the peak of her profession when you take a gander at her accomplishments enumerated in multiple publications last Fall. It’s also easy to see why her early years in Iowa positioned her for such great achievements.
Growing up Iowa
Unlike many of us, Cynthia was single-minded in her pursuit of a degree and a career from an early age. Case in point….when I was 14, I dreamt of marrying Paul McCartney. When she was 14, she dreamt of becoming an architect. In 1954, her objective seemed almost as impossible to achieve as the one I fantasized about years later.
Women architects were not exactly non-existent at the time, but close. The “only girl in architecture/industrial arts” was a noteworthy headline in the first half of the 20th century. Even into the 1960s my friend Vikki, featured in our local paper, described her status as an “island” among a drafting class of boys.
Cynthia paid no heed to the naysayers of her youth, especially the woman who told her “women can’t be architects.” Those strong women in her family…mother, grandmother, aunt and sister…begged to differ.
In a 2007 oral history interview for the Art Institute of Chicago, she notes that she was very interested in math, loved physics and had been drawing all her life. Architecture seemed a good fit given her interests and talents. Most importantly, she credits the realization of her dream to the strong support of her parents, the landscape of Iowa, and a few key buildings.
Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Johnson Wax Research Tower awed her at 8 as the family passed through Racine, WI. on vacation. At 10, she persuaded her grandmother to take her to the Eliel Saarinen-designed Des Moines Art Center which was under construction. Years later she still remembers scraping mud off her shoes after the site visit.
Unknown to us, but a constant inspiration to her, was the Craftsman-like house built by her grandfather where every creak of a stair created a memory.
Also deeply influencing was the fabric of the small towns in Iowa where she lived in her youth and the dramatic river terrain and “farm compounds like villages” that did not go unnoticed by this young girl.
Born in Des Moines, Cynthia’s high school years at DHS, in Davenport, were a prelude to her future career as an architect and leader. In a class of 622 students, she stood out academically and won a $2,000 scholarship to Washington University in St Louis where she would major in architecture.
Numerous newspaper articles and yearbook photos show her actively involved in creative endeavors and school organizations. My favorite story is this one from the local paper in 1957 titled, “What’s a ‘Mobile?’ Gallery Has Answer.”
Alexander Calder had created a new art form and Cynthia, at 16, was all over it. She detailed her own colorful creation…cardboard painted in shades of red, yellow, orange and deep blue green with wires in black. She worked on it for an hour every school day for 4 weeks.
The Municipal Art Gallery (now the Figge) paid $7.50 to add it to their “permanent” collection. Unfortunately, Cynthia’s early creation is nowhere to be found. I checked. Lost in storage or in the 2005 move or destroyed earlier? With luck, maybe someone gave it back to he
College and on to Chicago
Cynthia’s college years, where she started as one of 3 women in a class of 80 aspiring architects, were a repeat of personal and academic successes and leadership roles. She was also the 1960 Homecoming Queen. Basically, she was one well-rounded student with a “very Bauhaus education.”
Still making news locally after her college graduation, the paper noted in 1965 that Cindy Rogers was married to Ben “Meese,” an architect designing buildings for Cornell College in Mt Vernon, IA. and that Cindy, now living in Chicago with Ben, “had done some professional work.”
Ben “Meese” was, in fact, Ben “Weese,” “preservationist, rebel architect,” and one of the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s founders and saviors of H. H. Richardson’s 1887 Glessner House. Until his death in 2024 at 94, he was Cynthia’s husband for 60 years.
Ten years older than Cynthia, Ben was teaching at Washington U. when they met in 1963 and married 3 months later. Then it was off to Chicago, Ben’s hometown, where she designed for young “urban pioneers” who were committing to the city by remodeling homes in Lincoln Park, Old Town and other neighborhoods.
For a time in the ‘70s, she worked for landscape architect Joe Karr and briefly joined her husband in the offices of Harry Weese, renowned Mid-Century Modern (MCM) architect, and Ben’s older brother by 15 years.
Eventually Cynthia struck out on her own followed by Ben. The firm they established in 1977, Weese Langley Weese (WLW), is still in existence today, with their son, Daniel, a principal.**
One of Cynthia’s most interesting early projects that garnered national attention in 1978, and one that she particularly identifies with to this day, is the “ingenious and tasteful conversion of a Central Illinois corn crib into a family retreat.”
Around the same time Cynthia became a founding member of Chicago Women in Architecture (CWA); infiltrated an all male architecture group, the Chicago Seven, advocating against the rigidity of Mies van der Rohe’s MCM architecture; and, co-organized a first-ever exhibition titled “Chicago Women Architects: Contemporary Directions” at the Artemisia Gallery
Later Career and Retirement
As if she hadn’t been busy enough through the years designing, organizing and leading, in addition to raising a family, Cynthia accepted the position of Dean of the School of Architecture at her alma mater, Washington U. in 1993. There she found a professional home for 12 years and a calling: redesigning its graduate program and investing in digital technology.
Fast forward to her Chicago AIA honor and a 2023 YouTube video that features many of her designs and the effusive praise of her colleagues. “There’s almost nothing she didn’t do.” “She’s an architect’s architect.” “She’s everything that is noble about the profession.” “She’s an incredibly respected figure.” “So calm, quiet & unassuming.”
Not bad for that Iowa girl, Cindy Rogers, who had dream.
Today, Cynthia Weese is retired after a 50+ year career, but is she really? As she said recently, “Well, I think you’re always designing no matter what.”
Some Questions Remain
? What ever happened to that mobile she created in 1957?
? Did she attend the March 11, 1956 lecture, “Recent Architecture” at Davenport’s Municipal Art Gallery by Harry Weese, who became one of the icons of MCM architecture and, unknown to her at the time, her future brother-in-law?
? Did she come to know that Harry, early in his career (1952), designed a MCM home in Davenport less than a mile from her own family home on Iowa Street?
? Did she have any input on Harry’s design of a QC golf course clubhouse that opened around the same time she left his firm?
? Why isn’t she on the Hall of Honor at Central High School? It’s been suggested that I nominate her for that honor. I’m on it!
*James C. Goettsch: page: Architouring the Quad-Cities 10/19/2022
** More photos of Cynthia’s and Ben’s designs at the Weese Langley Weese website, wlwltd.
