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 theYale School of Architecture.
Born in theBrooklyn 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 nearbyManhattan borough.[5][better source needed] After 1940, they moved back to Brooklyn, where Stern grew up. Stern received a bachelor's degree fromColumbia University in 1960 and a master's degree in architecture fromYale University in 1965. Stern cited the historianVincent Scully and the architectPhilip Johnson as early mentors and influences.[6]
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.[12] From 1970 to 1998, he taught atColumbia University, in theColumbia 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,[12] and from 1992 to 1998, Stern served as Director of the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at GSAPP.[13]
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.[14] In 1986, he hostedPride of Place: Building the American Dream, an eight-part documentary series that aired on PBS. The series featuredPeter Eisenman,Léon Krier,Philip Johnson,Frank Gehry, and other notable architects.[15]
Stern was later better known for his large-scalecondominium and apartment building projects in New York City, which include20 East End Avenue, The Chatham, The Brompton, and15 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,[18] later succeeded by220 Central Park South.[19]
Stern designed some of the tallest structures in the United States, including the glass-clad Comcast Center, the second tallest building in bothPhiladelphia andPennsylvania.[20] TheDriehaus Prize committee (commenting on a preliminary, stone-clad, pyramidal-topped scheme) characterized the design as "[carrying] forward the proportions of the classicalobelisk".[21] The scheme, along with Stern's15 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, and30 Park Place, which became some of the tallest buildings in the city and the United States once completed.[22][23][24] In 2017, RAMSA completed a major addition to the campus of Yale University, with two new residential colleges,Pauli Murray College andBenjamin Franklin College, both designed in aCollegiate Gothic style.[25]
He also designedSchwarzman College in China; its 200,000-square-foot (19,000 m2) campus houses advanced higher-education facilities[26] and wasLEED Gold-certified.[27]
In the 1970s, and early 1980s, Stern developed a reputation as apostmodern architect for integrating classical elements into his designs for contemporary buildings.[28] Stern contributed a postmodern architectural facade to theStrada Novissima inThe Presence of the Past exhibit at the 1980Venice Architecture Biennale. In the mid-1980s, his work became more traditional, more in keeping with the then emergingNew Classical architectural movement.[29] Stern, however, rejected such characterizations, arguing that his projects draw onvernacular context and local traditions.[30]
Stern owned an apartment in The Chatham, a building he designed in New York City.[31] In 1966, he married photographerLynn Gimbel Solinger, the daughter ofDavid Solinger and the granddaughter ofBernard Gimbel.[32][33] They had one son, Nicholas S. G. Stern, who manages the boutique construction and planning firm Stern Projects.[34][35] The couple divorced in 1977.[32]
Stern died from apulmonary illness in Manhattan, on November 27, 2025, at the age of 86.[2]
^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. RetrievedNovember 28, 2025 – via JSTOR.
^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.ISBN978-1-58093-589-0.
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