SAN ANTONIO – From the start, a San Antonio man’s legacy lived through the architecture of the Alamo City.
Andy Perez had a connection to construction in San Antonio since his youth, as his father worked in the building trades.
Mark Blizard, his longtime friend, and colleague at UTSA, said the chairman of what is now the UTSA School of Architecture and Planning would “as a younger man look and see things his father was involved in.”
It “must have been very powerful for him,” said Blizard.
Perez went on to graduate from Burbank High School and the University of Texas, even attending the University of California at Berkley. He also served as a U.S. Navy officer, flying missions in Vietnam.
Perez was then recruited by late renowned architect O’Neill Ford at a party in San Antonio.
Cyndy Perez, his wife of 55 years, said Ford told her husband, “Andy, you’ve got to come work for me,” and “that’s it,” she said. “He had no choice.”
Perez grew to have his own architectural firm and was asked to be chairman of what was then the Department of Architecture at UTSA. Eventually, he took part in the design team for the Alamodome.
It was a challenge, but it didn’t diminish his passion for San Antonio’s history, Cyndy said.
“The history was so forgotten about for so long,” Cyndy said. “He just wanted to expose it to people.”
Blizard added, “Andy first had this notion that we shouldn’t be preserving objects. We should be understanding cultural heritage.”
Perez believed, “We have to look at neighborhoods. We actually have to have historic districts.”
He said the studies Perez did laid the groundwork for San Antonio’s historic districts, which is what other cities wanted to do, “the way that we were dealing the history of San Antonio.”
Blizard said Perez embodied San Antonio.
“He understood it,” Perez said. “It was part of his memory.”
Also on KSAT