Beth Mosenthal, AIA

There is nothing more exciting to me than a profession that is inherently interdisciplinary.

While I, too, like many fellow architects “always knew” I wanted to practice architecture, I chose to take a welcome detour prior to actually becoming one.

Trained first as a painter/art history major with a minor in English in DC/Italy, I spent college immersed in the humanities.  During this time I also became an art/architecture critic for an independent student newspaper in DC; an experience that helped me find my voice, while proving to be a great opportunity to synthesize a healthy diet of culture and content.

Post-college I attended Syracuse University’s 3.5 year MArch program in Syracuse and London, and found that while my “gestural” hand drawing skills were at first almost impossible to translate into legible line work, the computer quickly became my paintbrush for expressing ideas as tangible items for constructive critique.

Grad school also proved to be a great opportunity for me to explore firms of all shapes and sizes, to see where I might hope to land post-academia. After internships in Maine, New York, and Shanghai, I found that my Small/Medium/Large experiment landed me with Gensler in Chicago and Denver, and presently as a Licensed Architect at Anderson Mason Dale Architects in Denver.

I’m ecstatic to be able to contribute to the AIA Colorado Emerging Professionals Blog, and hope that I can blend writing and architecture to create discussions that are both interdisciplinary and accessible.

As you well know, architecture isn’t just about building; it’s about politics, social interaction, human behavior, systems, mechanics, foresight, strategy, technology, the environment… I could go on and on (and on.)

Hopefully my blog posts will also run the gamut of related topics, to provide a three-dimensional look at a profession that is as dynamic as it is delicate.