An excerpt of an interview of Marion Weiss, principal and co-founder of Weiss/Manfredi, by Franca Trubiano, associate professor of architecture, and graduate student Ramona Adlakha, has been published by the Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. The interview is an excerpt from Women (Re)Build: Stories, Polemics, Futures, a book recently published by Applied Research and Design that reflects on feminist thought in architecture. 

In the interview, Weiss discusses her long career in academia and practice, how she came to study architecture, her designs for the Women's Memorial in Washington, D.C., and how teaching and practice influence one another, among several other topics. 

"Sometimes history has less depth and importance than we might think—even if the forms look historically significant," Weiss explains as she describes her work reusing a historic retaining wall designed by legacy firm McKim, Mead, and White as a part of the Women's Memorial, adding, "From our point of view, it was time to introduce a new history to honor women who had served—break through the wall, cut through those barriers, create a space, and a gallery of celebration, rather than preserve a wall that was just retaining the twenty-plus-foot grade change between the cemetery and the terminus of the memorial bridge."