| Robert A. M. Stern | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 23, 1939 |
| Nationality | American |
Robert Arthur Morton Stern, usually credited as Robert A. M. Stern, (born May 23, 1939) is an American architect and Dean of the Yale University School of Architecture.
His work is generally classified as postmodern, though a more useful classification would be a particular emphasis on context and the continuity of traditions. He may have been the first architect to use the term "postmodernism",[1] but more recently he has used the phrase "modern traditionalist" to describe his work.
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He received a bachelor's degree from Columbia University in 1960 and a master's degree in architecture from Yale University in 1965. After graduating from Yale, Stern worked as a designer in the office of Richard Meier in 1966, prior to forming the firm of Stern & Hagmann with a fellow student from his days at Yale, John S. Hagmann, in 1969. In 1977 he founded the successor firm, Robert A. M. Stern Architects. Before becoming architecture dean at Yale, he was professor of architecture at Columbia University and director of Columbia's Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture.
Major Public Projects include the Lakewood Public Library in Lakewood, Ohio, an inner ring suburb of Cleveland, Ohio; Nashville Public Library in Nashville, Tennessee, Jacksonville Public Library in Jacksonville, Florida, and the main library in Columbus, Georgia; Point West Place in Framingham, Massachusetts; the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta, Georgia, and federal courthouses in Youngstown, Ohio, Beckley, West Virginia and Richmond, Virginia the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, the Mason School of Business at the College of William and Mary, 15 Central Park West, the North Quadrangle Residential and Academic Complex at the University of Michigan and the future George W. Bush Presidential Library at Southern Methodist University.
In September 2008, Mr. Stern's firm was selected to design the two new residential colleges at Yale University, the largest single building commission in New Haven's history.[2]
He and his firm have notably been involved in projects for The Walt Disney Company, including the plan for the town of Celebration, Florida and the design of Disney's feature animation building in Burbank, California. He and his firm were also involved in planning the renovation of Times Square, New York City, beginning in 1992 and is the campus master planner for Georgetown University, the Harvard Law School, the College of Notre Dame of Maryland and Acadia University in Wolfville Nova Scotia.
He hosted the television series Pride of Place: Building the American Dream on PBS and his book New York 1930 was nominated for the National Book Award. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. In 2008 he was awarded the Vincent Scully Prize by the National Building Museum for his contributions to the built environment.[3]
Stern spoke frequently in defense of preservationists' efforts to save the ur-postmodernist 2 Columbus Circle in New York City, which has now been radically altered and occupied by the Museum of Art and Design.
While studying towards his Masters of Architecture at Yale University, Stern received a grant from the Graham Foundation to aid in his efforts to publish a book on the life and times of George Howe.
Author Arthur Miller is a second cousin through his paternal grandmother. His brother is Sanskrit scholar Elliot M. Stern.
The following is an incomplete list:
Edmund N. Bacon Prize, Ed Bacon Foundation (now under the Philadelphia Center for Architecture), 2006