I first became aware of architecture
as a profession because we lived next door to an architect when my
husband was in the Navy, and that was about thirty years ago, thirty
two years ago, and as I said, our next door neighbor was an architect. I had been
interested in drawing and painting, and buildings and so on before that,
but I really hadn¡¯t thought about architecture as a career. And, we
got to know them and I thought that might be interesting. I had been
teaching English as a second language and we got back to the States with a
two month old and moved first to the Orlando area and finished out the
Navy and then came to the Champaign Urbana area, where, guess what, they
have this great school of architecture and I knew I wasn¡¯t going to be
sitting at home raising kids, it¡¯s just not me. So, I thought about
going further in English speech, that kind of curriculum, I really didn¡¯t
want to teach anymore. That was ¡¯67, ¡¯68, and historically it
wasn¡¯t a great time to be in the schools, and I said life¡¯s too
short! And, so I started part-time at the U of I in the school
of Architecture, which of course is not something they
like. |
| Gloria: What was you experience with that like? |
Gosh, well let me see. Most of the people,
not all, actually started in design classes over the summer, and had a
great time. And so I took the second part of that sequence in the
fall. And there was this message from the office ¡®Will you have
Cathy Dailey to come here¡± and of course I was taking up, I had a prior
degree and was taking up a graduate slot in an undergraduate
program. And they told me, you can¡¯t go to graduate school in
architecture part time, and I said, ¡°Okay, tell me what I have to
do.¡± And he said, ¡°Well, why don¡¯t you go to Parkland and take up
some of those other courses.¡± And it had been a long time since I
had had, for example the math that was required. I had never had
calculus, so I said okay, ¡°I¡¯ll do it. Let¡¯s go through the
curriculum guide and we¡¯ll see from there. And you tell me what I
should do and the next time you see me, I¡¯ll be enrolled full-time.
And I want to know, in writing what you¡¯re going to expect.¡± And
he gave me one of these squinty-eyed looks, and said,
¡°Okay.¡± |
| Gloria: You were definitely very assertive. |
Well, I just wasn¡¯t taking any run-around,
that¡¯s all, you know. And, keep in mind that I wasn¡¯t eighteen at
the time. Of course I wasn¡¯t fifty either! So, he took the
time with me to do that and in the winter term, the next time after I go
tout of that fall design class, I started at Parkland, and in a year and a
half, I was ready to come back to the U of I. Well, Prof. "X" was spending
his time in the barrel with us, actually, when I first this project.
And, he and I are good friends now, but at the time he kind of gave me one
of these ¡®Why do you want to architecture¡¯ sorts of speeches. And
I understood where he was coming from, but I didn¡¯t much appreciate
it. By the time I saw him again, when I was ready to come back full
time, he was the one who called me and said, ¡°I know you¡¯re looking for
this news, you¡¯ve been accepted to come full-time to the school of
architecture.¡± And, so that was kind of fun. |
| Gloria: So, were there a lot of female students or were you the only one? |
| There were two, one or two. |
| Gloria: How was working in a completely male dominated design studio? |
I¡¯ve never had a problem with that. I
don¡¯t really understand, I don¡¯t know what your orientation is, or what
your experiences have been, or how your class is focused, but I can tell
you I have never had an uncomfortable situation that wouldn¡¯t have been
the same kind of discomfort for any new kid on the block. In terms
if just relationships with people. |
| Joanna: The fact that you didn¡¯t feel different because you were a female in a male dominated field, do you attribute that to anything in particular, or do you think the other females had the same experiences? |
I can¡¯t answer for the other females. I can
tell you that when I went back to school full-time, there were a few more
women. And I had two or three of the, probably second-year graduate
women, as they were leaving and graduating and I was just starting, they
said to me, ¡°If you ever have any problems, go talk to Prof. "Y".¡±
And I said, ¡°What problems?¡± ¡°Well, you know.¡± And I said,
¡°No.¡± And that¡¯s kind of always the way I¡¯ve felt about
it. When I took the first summer class, I was twenty-six, I was
married, had a child, and I¡¯d learned how, long since, to field the
various things that can happen at any time in your life with people.
And, you learn that your demeanor, if you¡¯re in a professional situation,
you act professionally. You don¡¯t behave like you¡¯re at Kam¡¯s,
the Tumble Inn! And it makes a difference, so you have a
responsibility in that. |
| Gloria: Well, do you feel as a woman studying architecture at the time, that you had to achieve over and above your male colleagues and male students to prove yourself? |
I didn¡¯t feel that way. Sometimes, I have
felt that way in the profession. Usually, it¡¯s when you first start
out with a group of people, and it doesn¡¯t take long to change
that. Again, it¡¯s really a situation of doing what you can do,
having confidence in yourself. Nobody in the profession can get by
being all show and no go. There¡¯s a point at which you have to make
a living, and that means working the long hours, same as everybody.
Being able to look a contractor in the eye and saying, ¡°No, this is how
it¡¯s going to be. It¡¯s in the spec, we drew it that way, I don¡¯t care what you think, I¡¯m sorry you didn¡¯t do it that way, but this is the way it¡¯s going to be.¡± You just have to, you know, you do it with a smile, but you¡¯re firm. |
| Joanna: Have you always been a fairly strong and confident person throughout your life? |
Probably. I was an only child, I¡¯ve always
been independent. When mother said, ¡°You make me sick.¡± I
said, ¡°Why?¡± She said, ¡°Because you always do what you damn well
please.¡± Today I can say to her, ¡°Mom, I learned it from
you!¡± |
| Joanna: How long were you in Guam? |
| Two years |
| Joanna: Do you believe traveling had any impact on what you wanted to do? |
I think travel and exposure
to anything and everything that you can get exposed to in the world
will give you buqu confidence. That doesn¡¯t have anything to do with architecture, per
se, I always wanted to be an architect, I always loved to travel.
One of the things I love to do is see architecture all over the world, but
that probably came from going back to school in architecture, more than,
because I look at things differently than when I traveled before. Great
fun. |
| Gloria: Definitely, I think from traveling and looking at architecture, you get a completely different perspective, versus being in school, being focused on your work, you can just really be inspired. |
You¡¯ll find that later, when you¡¯re working on a
project and you¡¯re starting to get bogged down a little bit, and your
eating, drinking, and sleeping it. A couple years ago, my husband
and I took off on a trip to Copenhagen, and I¡¯ve had this idea in which I
kind of spouted off about before I left and by the time I had come back I
had seen examples of varying ages of architecture throughout history
of how that technique had been used and I was convinced. And I was
told that what I had thought about for this project and we ended up doing
it. It really got me on-center, that kind of thing you¡¯re going
up and down on. |
| Gloria: Actually, we were having a discussion in our seminar about working as a woman architect and a lot of the times, one of the students had mentioned that when she answered the phone, just because she¡¯s woman, it¡¯s assumed she¡¯s the secretary. Have you ever experienced that? |
| Again, I¡¯ve never had that. You might question how that person answered the phones. In our office, everybody answers the phones. You know, the guys are as likely to answer the phones as the gals. |
| Joanna: How many people work in this office? |
| Twelve. |
| Gloria: And there¡¯s other women employees? |
| Yes. |
| Joanna: How many? |
| Other than our office manager, two. |
| Joanna: Going back for a minute to when to when you talked about your experiences when you were entering the school of Architecture, when you talked to the Dean and then went to Parkland. I would imagine that while I¡¯m at Parkland, I¡¯d get really intent to get back there and even more persistent in the field I wanted to be studying. Did you feel that while you were at Parkland, before you got accepted to the school of Architecture, did you feel you were even more intent to do what you wanted to do than when you had first started? |
Probably it focuses you more,
because when I took the two design courses it was fun, it was fun and
games, and you could appreciate the attitude of the school in saying
one, you¡¯re a graduate
taking an undergraduate class and taking up a graduate slot, somebody that
could be back here in a full-fledged program, you need to think about what
you¡¯re doing. In other words, don¡¯t be a dilettante in this.
And, so by the time I went to Parkland, and had to face the thought,
Oh, I¡¯m going to have to take calculus. Well, it¡¯s only been
twenty years since I¡¯ve had college algebra, so you know, maybe I¡¯ll
start by taking college algebra, just to see if my brain is still
functioning that way. And, I did that, and went all the way through
calculus. So, there were times when I said, Do I want this badly
enough to do this? Geometry¡¯s great, calculus-I could live
without. So, you know at some point you have to say, do you really
want it that badly. |
| Gloria: And your husband was extremely supportive? |
If he hadn¡¯t been, I couldn¡¯t have done
it. It¡¯s not that there haven¡¯t been problems, but he¡¯s really
been great. And I only had one child, and that makes a
difference. Women who have more than one just flabbergast me, I
don¡¯t know how they do it. |
| Joanna: I cannot imagine having to raise a family, being married, having to take on a workload and also being a student, it would just be really overwhelming. |
Well, I can tell you there are
lots of time you start the work that you need to have done the next
day at nine, or sometimes ten o¡¯clock at night. You better have
good stamina. |
| Joanna: Your experience must have been different in that respect, the fact that you were married and had a kid. You must have a different mindset, I guess you can¡¯t say because you don¡¯t know about the other students, but I imagine it would be a different mindset. |
Let¡¯s look at it this way, I wasn¡¯t
going out rollerblading with the rest of the guys at the studio, as
much fun as it might have been. |
| Joanna: And that¡¯s probably the case whether you were a woman or a man. |
| Oh, yeah. We got along great in the studio, but there¡¯s just not time, there just isn¡¯t. |
| Gloria: Have you found that getting promotions or more responsibility have relatively- |
More responsibility usually
comes to those who show they can take it. As soon as the opportunity arises, in other
words, assuming there¡¯s work in the office and if I felt that someone
else has not been accustomed to letting go suddenly can¡¯t do it all, and
I see they can¡¯t, the next one up is me. That¡¯s true if you¡¯re
male or female. People in architecture usually like what they do,
that¡¯s why they¡¯re there and they like the practice of architecture for
the business of architecture. And so, all of a sudden when you start
letting go of the things that you really like to do because you have
pressure of other things you don¡¯t like to do so well, sometimes it¡¯s
hard. But that doesn¡¯t mean that architecture doesn¡¯t need to
be raised. |
| Gloria: Oh, so which option did you choose in graduate school? |
I was originally in the design
option and decided that at the time the big project that was coming
up, you know after you do your first semester and everybody¡¯s in the design option, the big design
that was coming up was the re-design of Wolf Point in Chicago, and I said,
I don¡¯t need that. So, I went in, and it wasn¡¯t the guiding force
I went into the housing option and since then I have designed two
houses. But the point of that was that after much discussions, was
that I could do that as long as I felt I could do that, as long as when I
was in that program I wasn¡¯t limited in my focus, that it was more a
scale issue. |
profiled by Joanna Strauss