The interview traces Mark Foster Gage’s lower-middle-class upbringing in a Navy family, beginning with his birth in Nebraska and following the family’s moves to U.S. bases in Virginia, California, and Indiana. His father was a Vietnam War veteran, while his mother worked and later earned master’s degrees, and the family emphasized education despite its modest means. The interview highlights his undergraduate education at Notre Dame, where he encountered postmodern and deconstructivist influences including Michael Graves, Aldo Rossi, and Peter Eisenman; his M.Arch. studies at Yale with Peter Eisenman, Jeffrey Kipnis, Greg Lynn, and Robert Somol; and his professional work with Peter Eisenman and Frank Gehry. It also covers the founding of his firm in 2002, his teaching and deanship at Yale, his critiques of parametricism, his advocacy for aesthetics through engagement with philosophers such as Graham Harman, Jacques Rancière, and David Chalmers, and his recent projects in Saudi Arabia exploring consciousness, space, and architectural reinvention.