Robert A. M. Stern

Robert Arthur Morton Stern 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. 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 world and is one of the first LEED Gold-certified academic buildings in China.

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. 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. In 1977 he founded its successor firm, Robert A.M. Stern Architects, now known as RAMSA. Stern remains a partner at RAMSA, and has indicated he has no plans to retire.

Educator
Stern was the dean of the Yale School of Architecture from 1998 to 2016, and has continued to teach there since the end of his tenure. Previously, he taught at Columbia University, in the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and from 1984 to 1988 was the director of Columbia's Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture.

Other activities
A prolific writer, Stern has authored, co-authored, and edited numerous books about architecture, including five 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.

Work
Many of Stern's early works were private houses in the New York metropolitan area, including in the Hamptons and in Westchester County. Early commercial commissions included projects for Walt Disney World such as Disney's Yacht Club Resort, Disney's Beach Club Resort and the masterplan for Celebration, Florida, and from 1992−2003, Stern served on the board of the Walt Disney Company.

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.

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. 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". 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 will be among the tallest buildings in the city and the United States when complete. 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.

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. 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. Stern, however, has rejected such characterizations, arguing that his projects draw on vernacular context and local traditions. In recent years, the work of Stern's office has ranged from traditional to modernist, depending on the building type and project location, and is best characterized as eclectic and contextual.

Notable projects

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2025