Just over one year since Chris Cornelius took up his role as the Chair of the Department of Architecture at the University of New Mexico, the architect and educator has spoken to The New York Times on how his career was informed by his upbringing and his Oneida heritage.

An enrolled member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, Cornelius is also the founding principal of studio:indigenous, a design practice that serves American Indian clients. Back in 2017, to mark Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Archinect included Cornelius’s firm in a list of our favorite contemporary practices led by Indigenous architects.

“In our neighborhood, there were no trees or sidewalks,” Cornelius told The Times about his childhood in a federal public housing project on the Oneida Indian reservation. “When I saw how different life was off the reservation, I began to think about how I could make an impact on my environment.”

The Times' article also profiles how Cornelius brought an awareness of his Oneida heritage to his architectural principles while majoring in architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Studying at the school where he would later serve as a faculty member, Cornelius engaged with Indigenous students to reflect further on what Indigenous architecture could be.

“There were a lot of buildings in our culture that made simple symbolic references like animals or traditional longhouses and wigwams,” Cornelius told The Times. “Turtles are very important to Oneida, but the turtle-shaped school on the reservation didn’t have an impact on people. I wanted to think critically about what was being built, what stories were being told, and how people would experience it.”

The full New York Times piece on Cornelius is available here.