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Robert A. M. Stern

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For other people named Robert Stern, see Robert Stern (disambiguation).

Robert A. M. Stern
Born(1939-05-23)May 23, 1939
New York City, U.S.
DiedNovember 27, 2025(2025-11-27) (aged 86)
New York City, U.S.
EducationColumbia University (BA)
Yale University (MArch)
OccupationArchitect
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1966; div. 1977)​
Children1
AwardsDriehaus Architecture Prize
BuildingsComcast Tower, 15 Central Park West, 220 Central Park South, 520 Park Avenue, 30 Park Place, Pauli Murray College and Benjamin Franklin College
Signature

Robert Arthur Morton Stern (May 23, 1939 – November 27, 2025) was an American architect, educator and author. He was 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.[1] In 2011, Stern was honored with the Driehaus Architecture Prize for his achievements in contemporary classical architecture.

Early life and education

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Born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on May 23, 1939,[2] to a Jewish family,[3][4] Stern spent his earliest years with his parents in the nearby Manhattan borough.[5][better source needed] 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 cited the historian Vincent Scully and the architect Philip Johnson as early mentors and influences.[6]

Career

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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.[7] While at the League, he organized the second 40 Under 40 show, which featured his own work alongside work of architects Charles Moore, Robert Venturi, and Romaldo Giurgola,[8] all of whom were featured as authors in the influential[9] issue of Perspecta that Stern edited a year before at Yale.[10][11] 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.[12] In 1977 he founded its successor firm, Robert A.M. Stern Architects, now known as RAMSA.[13]

Educator

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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.[14] From 1970 to 1998, he taught at Columbia University, in the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. From 1984 to 1988 was the inaugural director of Columbia GSAPP's Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture,[14] and from 1992 to 1998, Stern served as Director of the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at GSAPP.[15]

Other activities

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A prolific writer, Stern 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.[16] 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, Léon Krier, Philip Johnson, Frank Gehry, and other notable architects.[17]

Work

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Main article: List of works by Robert A.M. Stern
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.[12] His 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.[18][19]

Stern was later 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,[20] later succeeded by 220 Central Park South.[21]

Stern 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.[22] 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".[23] 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 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.[24][25][26] 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.[27]

He also designed Schwarzman College in China; its 200,000-square-foot (19,000 m2) campus houses advanced higher-education facilities[28] and was LEED Gold-certified.[29]

Style

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In the 1970s, and early 1980s, Stern developed a reputation as a postmodern architect for integrating classical elements into his designs for contemporary buildings.[30] Stern contributed a postmodern architectural facade to the Strada Novissima in The Presence of the Past exhibit at the 1980 Venice Architecture Biennale. In the mid-1980s, his work became more traditional, more in keeping with the then emerging New Classical architectural movement.[31] Stern, however, rejected such characterizations, arguing that his projects draw on vernacular context and local traditions.[32]

Notable projects

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Personal life

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Stern owned an apartment in The Chatham, a building he designed in New York City.[33] In 1966, he married photographer Lynn Gimbel Solinger, the daughter of David Solinger and the granddaughter of Bernard Gimbel.[34][35] They had one son, Nicholas S. G. Stern, who manages the boutique construction and planning firm Stern Projects.[36][37] The couple divorced in 1977.[34]

Stern died from a pulmonary illness in Manhattan, on November 27, 2025, at the age of 86.[2]

Professional associations and honors

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Stern was president of the Architectural League of New York from 1973 to 1977;[38] held various roles at the non-profit Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies until its closure in 1985, including visiting fellow and eventually institute trustee;[39] and was a board member of the SOM Foundation beginning in 1985.[40] He was a member of the Council of Advisors for the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art[41] and served on the board of trustees for the National Building Museum.[42] He was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007,[43] and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2011.[44]

Other select awards include:

Bibliography

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

  • New Directions in American Architecture (1969, George Braziller 1977), ISBN 978-0-8076-0523-3
  • George Howe: Toward a Modern American Architecture (Yale University Press, 1975), ISBN 978-0-300-01642-0
  • New York 1900: Metropolitan Architecture and Urbanism 1890–1915 (Rizzoli, 1983), ISBN 978-0-8478-0511-2
  • New York 1930: Architecture and Urbanism Between the Two World Wars (Rizzoli, 1987), ISBN 978-0-8478-0618-8
  • Modern Classicism (Rizzoli, 1988), ISBN 978-0-8478-0848-9
  • Pride of Place: Building the American Dream (Houghton Mifflin, 1986), ISBN 978-0-395-36696-7
  • The House That Bob Built (1991), ISBN 978-0-8478-1369-8
  • New York 1960: Architecture and Urbanism Between the Second World War and the Bicentennial (Monacelli, 1997), ISBN 978-1-885254-85-6
  • New York 1880: Architecture and Urbanism in the Gilded Age (Monacelli, 1999), ISBN 978-1-58093-027-7
  • New York 2000: Architecture and Urbanism Between the Bicentennial and the Millennium (Monacelli, 2006), ISBN 978-1-58093-177-9
  • The Philip Johnson Tapes: Interviews by Robert A.M. Stern (Monacelli, 2008), ISBN 978-1-58093-214-1
  • Paradise Planned: The Garden Suburb and the Modern City (Monacelli, 2013), ISBN 978-1-58093-326-1
  • Pedagogy and Place: 100 Years of Architecture Education at Yale (Yale University Press, 2016), ISBN 978-0-300-21192-4
  • The New Residential Colleges at Yale: A Conversation Across Time (Monacelli, 2018), ISBN 978-1-58093-504-3
  • Between Memory and Invention: My Journey in Architecture (Monacelli, 2022), ISBN 978-1-58093-589-0
  • New York 2020: Architecture and Urbanism at the Beginning of a New Century (Monacelli, 2025), ISBN 978-1-58093-694-1

References

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  1. ^ "Projects". July 22, 2025.
  2. ^ a b McFadden, Robert D. (November 27, 2025). "Robert A.M. Stern, Architect Who Reinvented Prewar Splendor, Dies at 86". The New York Times. Retrieved November 27, 2025.
  3. ^ Michael Henry Adams (March 21, 2021). "MoMA wants to cancel Philip Johnson – many who knew him do not". The Guardian.
  4. ^ Aslet, Clive (June 29, 2022). "Blueprint for a starchitect". The Critic Magazine. Retrieved November 27, 2025.
  5. ^ 1940 U.S. Census, 135 Ridge Street, New York, NY.
  6. ^ "Who are you Robert Stern?". Big Think. February 21, 2008. Retrieved April 28, 2014.
  7. ^ Fuller, Jarrett (February 6, 2022). "Between Memory and Invention: Robert A.M. Stern and the intersection of history and practice". Retrieved December 2, 2025.
  8. ^ Stern, Robert A. M. (February 2006). "Interview with Robert A. M. Stern". Journal of Architectural Education (Interview). Vol. 59, no. 3. Interviewed by Dodds, George. p. 61. Retrieved November 28, 2025 – via JSTOR.
  9. ^ Scully, Vincent (1981). "The Star in Stern: Sightings and Orientation". Robert Stern (PDF). Great Britain: Architectural Design. Retrieved December 2, 2025.
  10. ^ Perspecta: The Yale Architectural Journal, Vol. 9/10 (The MIT Press, 1965)
  11. ^ Stuart, John A. (September 2006). "Re-Reading Perspecta: The First Fifty Years of the Yale Architectural Journal, by Robert A. M. Stern, Alan Plattus, Peggy Deamer". Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 65 (3): 457. doi:10.2307/25068311. JSTOR 25068311 – via JSTOR.
  12. ^ a b Stern, Robert A. M. (1981). Peter Arnell (ed.). Robert A. M. Stern 1965-1980. Ted Bickford. New York, NY: Rizzoli. ISBN 978-0-8478-0400-9.
  13. ^ Bernstein, Fred A. (November 27, 2025). "Robert A.M. Stern, renowned architect and educator, dies at 86". The Washington Post.
  14. ^ a b "Robert A.M. Stern". Yale University. Retrieved February 1, 2016.
  15. ^ Roche, Daniel Jonas (December 1, 2025). "Robert A. M. Stern dies at 86". The Architect's Newspaper. Retrieved December 2, 2025.
  16. ^ Farago, Jason (November 10, 2025). "Robert A.M. Stern Is Still Dreaming of a Fresh New York". New York Times. Retrieved December 2, 2025.
  17. ^ Stern, Robert A. M. (November 1, 2005). "Robert A. M. Stern". Perspecta. 37. The MIT Press: 50–57.
  18. ^ Zukowsky, John. "Robert A. M. Stern (American architect)". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved April 3, 2014.
  19. ^ "Robert A.M. Stern, FAIA". RAMSA. Retrieved July 22, 2025.
  20. ^ Goldberger, Paul (September 1, 2008). "King of Central Park West". Vanity Fair. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  21. ^ Hughes, C.J. (February 3, 2025). "Vornado sells one of its last remaining Billionaires Row condos". Crain's New York Business. Retrieved July 16, 2025.
  22. ^ "Comcast Center". RAMSA. Retrieved July 22, 2025.
  23. ^ a b "Robert A.M. Stern". Driehaus Architecture Prize (Notre Dame University). 2011. Archived from the original on March 21, 2014. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  24. ^ Wilson, Reid (December 28, 2015). "54-Story, 33-Unit Residential Tower Rises At 520 Park Avenue, Upper East Side". New York YIMBY. Retrieved February 1, 2016.
  25. ^ Fedak, Nikolai (January 28, 2016). "Final Renderings for 220 Central Park South Show Slight Design Changes". New York YIMBY. Retrieved February 1, 2016.
  26. ^ Fedak, Nikolai (October 7, 2013). "30 Park Place Set to Resume Construction". New York YIMBY. Retrieved February 1, 2016.
  27. ^ "Construction Story: Building the New Colleges". The New Residential Colleges. Yale Univeristy. Retrieved March 21, 2018.
  28. ^ "About". Schwarzman Scholars. September 4, 2025. Retrieved November 27, 2025.
  29. ^ "Schwarzman College Awarded LEED Gold Certification". Schwarzman Scholars. January 9, 2018. Retrieved November 27, 2025.
  30. ^ Davidson, Justin (November 3, 2013). "Unfashionably Fashionable". New York. Retrieved April 28, 2014.
  31. ^ Pogrebin, Robin (December 16, 2007). "Building Respect at Yale". The New York Times. Retrieved April 28, 2014.
  32. ^ Marino, Vivian (June 29, 2012). "The 30-Minute Interview: Robert A.M. Stern". The New York Times. Retrieved April 28, 2014.
  33. ^ Marino, Vivian (June 20, 2012). "The 30-Minute Interview Robert A.M. Stern". The New York Times. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  34. ^ a b Everett-Haynes, La Monica (April 6, 2012). "Photography Center Acquires the Lynn Stern Archive". University of Arizona News.
  35. ^ "Weddings/Celebrations; Courtney Phillips, Nicholas Stern". The New York Times. September 14, 2003.
  36. ^ Marino, Vivian (November 5, 2013). "Nicholas S. G. Stern". The New York Times. Retrieved February 1, 2016.
  37. ^ Alden, William (August 25, 2010). "Postmodern Son: Nicholas S. G. Stern Steps Out on His Own". Observer. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  38. ^ Stern, Robert A. M. (2022). Between memory and invention: my journey in architecture. New York, New York: The Monacelli Press, a division of Phaidon Press. p. 114. ISBN 978-1-58093-589-0.
  39. ^ "POSTPONED – Cocktails & Conversation: Peter Eisenman and Robert A.M. Stern". American Institute of Architechts, New York. March 20, 2020. Retrieved December 2, 2025.
  40. ^ Gil, Iker (ed.). "History". SOM Foundation. Retrieved November 28, 2025.
  41. ^ Gunther, Paul (2011). "2011 Driehaus Prize Winner Announced". Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. Retrieved November 28, 2025.
  42. ^ "Board". National Building Museum. June 11, 2024. Retrieved November 28, 2025.
  43. ^ "Robert A. M. Stern". American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved November 28, 2025.
  44. ^ "Membership". American Academy of Arts and Letters. Retrieved November 28, 2025.
  45. ^ "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
  46. ^ "Edmund N. Bacon Urban Design Awards". DesignPhiladelphia. Center for DesignPhiladelphia. Retrieved July 15, 2025.
  47. ^ "Members Only Screening of Robert A.M. Stern's Journey in Architecture". Institute of Classical Architecture & Art.
  48. ^ amckeag (June 11, 2015). "Athena Medals". CNU. Retrieved June 25, 2022.
  49. ^ "Robert A.M. Stern". National Building Museum. November 12, 2008. Archived from the original on December 20, 2015. Retrieved February 1, 2016.
  50. ^ Rybczynski, Witold (February 4, 2009). "That Dogma Won't Hunt". Slate. Retrieved February 1, 2016.
  51. ^ "Historic Districts Council Landmarks Lion Award winners". Historic Districts Council. January 14, 2019. Retrieved July 16, 2025.
  52. ^ "The 35th Annual Arthur Ross Awards". Institute of Classical Architecture & Art.
  53. ^ Carodine, Victoria (December 7, 2016). "Robert A.M. Stern Wins 2017 AIA Topaz Medallion". Architect.
  54. ^ "2019 Louis Auchincloss Prize Presentation & Reception". Museum of the City of New York.
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