Robert A. M. Stern

In 2011, Stern was honored with the Driehaus Architecture Prize for his achievements in contemporary classical architecture.

• Name — Robert A.M. Stern • Born — 23 May 1939 • Birthplace — New York City, U.S. • Died — 27 November 2025 • Place of death — New York City, U.S. • Children — 1 • Significant Buildings — Comcast Tower, 15 Central Park West, 220 Central Park South, 520 Park Avenue, 30 Park Place, Pauli Murray College and Benjamin Franklin College • Awards — Driehaus Architecture Prize • Education — Columbia University (BA) Yale University (MArch) 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. In 2011, Stern was honored with the Driehaus Architecture Prize for his achievements in contemporary classical architecture.

Born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on May 23, 1939, to a Jewish family, Stern spent his earliest years with his parents in the nearby Manhattan borough. 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.

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 architects Charles Moore, Robert Venturi, and Romaldo Giurgola, all of whom were featured as authors in the 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 was the dean of the Yale School of Architecture from 1998 to 2016, and taught there after the end of his tenure until 2022. 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, and from 1992 to 1998, Stern served as Director of the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at GSAPP.

• Illustration — 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. 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 to 2003, Stern served on the board of the Walt Disney Company. 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, later succeeded by 220 Central Park South. 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. 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 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. 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. He also designed Schwarzman College in China; its 200,000 sqft campus houses advanced higher-education facilities and was LEED Gold-certified.

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 Architecture Biennale. In the mid-1980s, his work became more traditional, more in keeping with the then emerging New Classical architectural movement. Stern, however, rejected such characterizations, arguing that his projects draw on vernacular context and local traditions.

• Illustration — 15 Central Park West in New York City, 2008 • Illustration — 220 Central Park South in New York, 2019 • Illustration — 520 Park Avenue in New York City, 2018 • Illustration — George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Texas, US, 2013 • Illustration — Disney's Beach Club Resort at the Walt Disney World, Florida, US, 1990 • Illustration — Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, US, 2001 • Illustration — Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy in Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, 2006 • Illustration — Jacksonville Main Library in Jacksonville, Florida, US, 2005 • Illustration — Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, 2017 • Illustration — Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, US, 1993 • Illustration — alt=Darden School of Business University of Virginia Darden School of Business in Charlottesville, Virginia, US, 1996

Stern owned an apartment in The Chatham, a building he designed in New York City. In 1966, he married photographer Lynn Gimbel Solinger, the daughter of David Solinger and the granddaughter of Bernard Gimbel. They had one son, Nicholas S. G. Stern, who manages the boutique construction and planning firm Stern Projects. The couple divorced in 1977. Stern died from a pulmonary illness in Manhattan, on November 27, 2025, at the age of 86.