Robert A. M. Stern

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Robert Arthur Morton Stern (born May 23, 1939) is an American architect, educator, and author. He is the founding partner of the architecture firm, Robert A. M. Stern Architects, also known as RAMSA. From 1998 to 2016, he was the Dean of the Yale School of Architecture.

His firm's major works include the classically styled New York apartment building, 15 Central Park West; two residential colleges at Yale University; Philadelphia's Museum of the American Revolution; and the modernist Comcast Center skyscraper in Philadelphia.<ref name="Projects">Template:Cite web</ref> In 2011, Stern was honored with the Driehaus Architecture Prize for his achievements in contemporary classical architecture. Schwarzman College was designed by Stern; the 200,000 square foot campus houses one of the most advanced higher-education facilities in the worldTemplate:Citation needed and is one of the first LEED Gold-certified academic buildings in China.

Early life and education

Born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, in 1939 to a Jewish family,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Stern spent his earliest years with his parents in the nearby Manhattan borough.<ref>1940 U.S. Census, 135 Ridge Street, New York, NY.</ref> After 1940, they moved back to Brooklyn, where Stern grew up. Stern received a bachelor's degree from Columbia University in 1960 and a master's degree in architecture from Yale University in 1965. Stern has cited the historian Vincent Scully and the architect Philip Johnson as early mentors and influences.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Career

After graduating from Yale, Stern worked as a curator for the Architectural League of New York, a job he gained through his connection to Philip Johnson. While at the League, he organized the second 40 Under 40 show, which featured his own work alongside work of then-little-known architects Charles Moore, Robert Venturi and Romaldo Giurgola, all of whom were featured in the influential issue of Perspecta that Stern edited a year before at Yale.<ref>Perspecta: The Yale Architectural Journal, Vol. 9/10 (The MIT Press, 1965)</ref> Upon leaving the Architectural League in 1966, Stern worked briefly as a designer in the office of the architect Richard Meier, then worked for two and a half years at New York City's Housing and Development Administration, after which he established Stern & Hagmann with John S. Hagmann, a fellow student from his days at Yale.<ref name=stern1965>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1977 he founded its successor firm, Robert A.M. Stern Architects, now known as RAMSA.

Educator

Stern was the dean of the Yale School of Architecture from 1998 to 2016, and taught there after the end of his tenure until 2022.<ref name="yale">Template:Cite web</ref> Previously, he taught at Columbia University, in the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and from 1984 to 1988 was the inaugural director of Columbia's Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture.<ref name=yale/>

Other activities

A prolific writer, Stern has authored, co-authored, and edited numerous books about architecture, including six volumes about New York City's architectural history, each focusing on a different period. In 1986, he hosted Pride of Place: Building the American Dream, an eight-part documentary series that aired on PBS. The series featured Peter Eisenman, Leon Krier, Philip Johnson, Frank Gehry and other notable architects. Pride of Place was well received by the public.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Work

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File:Comcast Philly.JPG
Comcast Center, in Philadelphia

Many of Stern's early works were private houses in the New York metropolitan area, including in the Hamptons and in Westchester County.<ref name=stern1965/> Early commercial commissions included projects for Walt Disney World such as Disney's Yacht Club Resort, Disney's Beach Club Resort and the master plan for Celebration, Florida, and from 1992−2003, Stern served on the board of the Walt Disney Company.<ref name="Britannica">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Stern is now better known for his large-scale condominium and apartment building projects in New York City, which include 20 East End Avenue, The Chatham, The Brompton and 15 Central Park West. The latter was, at the time of its completion, one of the most financially successful apartment buildings ever constructed, with sales totaling $2 billion,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> later succeeded by 220 Central Park South.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Stern has designed some of the tallest structures in the United States, including the glass-clad Comcast Center, the second tallest building in both Philadelphia and Pennsylvania.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Driehaus Prize committee (commenting on a preliminary, stone-clad, pyramidal-topped scheme) characterized the design as "[carrying] forward the proportions of the classical obelisk".<ref name=driehaus>Template:Cite web</ref> The scheme, along with Stern's 15 Central Park West, and his master plan for Celebration, were cited as contributing factors in his having won the award. More recently, Stern has designed three skyscrapers in New York City, 220 Central Park South, 520 Park Avenue and 30 Park Place, which became some of the tallest buildings in the city and the United States once completed.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2017 RAMSA completed a major addition to the campus of Yale University, with two new residential colleges, Pauli Murray College and Benjamin Franklin College, both designed in a Collegiate Gothic style.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Style

In the 1970s, and early 1980s, Stern developed a reputation as a postmodern architect for integrating classical elements into his designs for contemporary buildings.<ref name=Davidson>Template:Cite journal</ref> Stern contributed a postmodern architectural facade to the Strada Novissima in The Presence of the Past exhibit at the 1980 Venice Biennale. In the mid-1980s, his work became more traditional, more in keeping with the then emerging New Classical architectural movement.<ref name="Pogrebin">Template:Cite news</ref> Stern, however, has rejected such characterizations, arguing that his projects draw on vernacular context and local traditions.<ref name=Marino>Template:Cite news</ref> In recent years, the work of Stern's office has ranged from traditional to modernist, depending on the building type and project location.

Notable projects

Personal life

Stern owns an apartment in The Chatham, a building he designed in New York City.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 1966, he married photographer Lynn Gimbel Solinger, the daughter of David Solinger and the granddaughter of Bernard Gimbel, a marriage that ended by divorce in 1977.<ref name=UANews>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> They had one son, Nicholas S. G. Stern, who manages the boutique construction and planning firm Stern Projects.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Professional associations and honors

Stern has both led and been recognized by numerous arts and architecture organizations, including serving as president of the Architectural League of New York from 1973 to 1977;<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> various roles at the non-profit Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies until its closure in 1985, including visiting fellow and eventually institute trustee; and a member of the board of trustees for the SOM Foundation from 1984 to 1990.

In 1998, Stern became a permanent member of the Council of Advisors for the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art and has served on the board of trustees for the National Building Museum since 1999.

Stern was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2011.

Other select awards include:

Bibliography

A selection of books written and co-written by Stern:

  • New Directions in American Architecture (1969)
  • George Howe : Toward a Modern American Architecture (1975)
  • New York 1900 : Metropolitan Architecture and Urbanism 1890–1915 (1983)
  • New York 1930 : Architecture and Urbanism Between the Two World Wars (1987)
  • Modern Classicism (1988)
  • Pride of Place : Building the American Dream (1986)
  • New York 1960 : Architecture and Urbanism Between the Second World War and the Bicentennial (1997)
  • New York 1880 : Architecture and Urbanism in the Gilded Age (1999)
  • New York 2000 : Architecture and Urbanism Between the Bicentennial and the Millennium (2006)
  • The Philip Johnson Tapes : Interviews by Robert A.M. Stern (2008)
  • Paradise Planned : The Garden Suburb and the Modern City (2013)
  • Pedagogy and Place: 100 Years of Architecture Education at Yale (2016)
  • The New Residential Colleges at Yale: A Conversation Across Time (2018)
  • Between Memory and Invention: My Journey in Architecture (2022)
  • New York 2020: Architecture and Urbanism at the Beginning of a New Century (2025)

References

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