Interior Design Hall of Fame

Internationally known architect, interior designer; author, scholar, teacher, essayist; industry spokesman, award winner; subject of monographs and exhibits; professional office holder, corporate board member, civic and cultural activist; theorist, pragmatist, trend setter--all this and more is Robert A.M. Stern. Most of the foregoing emerges from the voluminous data listed in his curriculum vitae; some derives from gleaning based on reputation. Still unknown, alas, is elucidation of those initials. He and his mother know; neither will tell.

Robert A.M. Stern Architects was founded by the eponymic senior partner about 33 years ago, following affiliation with Richard Meier. In 1988, reorganization brought in four architect partners: Robert Buford, Roger Seifert, Paul Whalen and Graham Wyatt. Together they embarked on a program of diversification, broadening the national client base to embrace Asia and Europe. Residential, commercial and institutional projects are the focal realms of the practice. Total staff count is 60.

Of his long list of projects completed or in work, Mr. Stern picks from the former category the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and the Newport Bay and Cheyenne hotels for Euro Disney in Marne-la-Vallee, France; projects include: the Columbus (Indiana) Regional Hospital, the Information Sciences Building for Stanford (Palo Alto, California) University plus golf club house, resort hotels and concert hall in Japan. Other achievements again severely condensed, include eleven national and New York chapter AIA awards and participation in the Mayor's NYC Task Force on Urban Design. He holds BA and M.Arch. degrees from Columbia and Yale universities respectively.

Unlike his formidable biography, Mr. Stern is informal in demeanor. He opts to omit honorific status letters after his name. Nor will he single out his favorite book by or about him, or pick the project that pleased him most--it would be like asking a parent to identify his most liked child. Leisure time diversions? None, really. Travels are busmen's holidays as his mind and eye never stray from buildings. But having been able to reach the professional standing where he can function as architect and historian and teacher-that, he says, is his great love.

Mr. Stern is the Dean of the Yale School of Architecture. He was previously a Professor of Architecture and Director of the Historic Preservation Program at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University. Mr. Stern served from 1984 to 1988 as the first director of Columbia's Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture. He has lectured extensively in the United States and abroad on both historical and contemporary topics in architecture. He is the author of several books, including New Directions in American Architecture; George Howe: Toward a Modern American Architecture; and Modern Classicism. Mr. Stern's particular interest and experience in the development of New York City's architecture and urbanism can be seen in his books, New York 1900, New York 1930, which was nominated for a National Book Award, New York 1960, and New York 1880.