Resculpting the Big-Box Store: James Wines' Unconventional Transition from Sculptor to Architect

From 1971 to 1984, James Wines and his architecture firm, SITE, an acronym for Sculpture In The Environment, designed a series of nine surrealist-inspired showrooms for the Richmond, Virginia-based retailer Best Products (Figure 1.1). Wines, however, is not a registered architect and has never had any formal training in architecture. After completing his Bachelor of Arts in studio art at Syracuse University and winning a Rome Prize in visual arts, Wines pursued a career in sculpture for twelve years. Despite a great deal of financial success and critical acclaim, Wines left the world of traditional object sculpture and entered architectural design by founding SITE in 1969. Thanks to the intimate artist-patron relationship he developed as a sculptor with the founders of Best Products, Sydney and Frances Lewis, Wines was able to launch his architectural career. Wines’ non-traditional background in sculpture provided him a unique outsider perspective and inspired his design ethos known as “De-Architecture” allowing him to construct some of the most widely recognized, yet controversial buildings in the United States of the late twentieth century.