Architects + Designers

Architect Robert A.M. Stern's Early Career

The esteemed AD100 talent discusses his early projects with AD
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Architect Robert A.M. Stern in 1980. He went on to write more than a dozen books and become dean of the Yale School of Architecture. Photo: Bob Kiss

After architecture school at Yale, one small house, a brief stint in Richard Meier's office, and two and a half years in New York City's Housing and Development Administration under Mayor John Lindsay, I began my independent practice. At about the same time I began to teach at Columbia University. The action for me as a young architect, along with others of my generation, was to reconfigure fairly large apartments in Manhattan's affluent neighborhoods—three-bedrooms, sometimes four—for young families who were choosing to live in the city rather than the suburbs. To meet a new generation's needs—and it was my generation—plans were opened up. Staff rooms were combined to create family rooms, and living and dining rooms were frequently thrown together—something I now view with mixed feelings. I took apart more beautifully planned apartments of an earlier era than I would like to admit. But in so doing I learned how to put them together. The same is true with houses: Lots of the houses I did early in my career were renovations of the shingled houses I love, and in fixing them up I eventually learned how to design new versions.

A New York apartment designed by Stern graced the cover of the April 1983 issue of AD. Photo: Jamie Ardiles-Arce

As my commitment to teaching grew, I had the great pleasure of working with some sharp young students who had put behind them the chaos of 1960s modernism, with its disregard of architectural form and style, and wanted to get back to real architecture. I was thrilled to have them as students, and I can safely say some of them were pretty happy to have me as their teacher. Many of them came to work for me in my growing office. Some later moved on to independent practice—and quite a few have earned a spot in the AD100; I think the École de Stern should not be underestimated—but some stayed with the office, and together we attracted other top rising talents. I'm referring especially to Roger Seifter and Randy Correll, both of whom were students of mine at Columbia, and to Grant Marani and Gary Brewer, who came to join us. All four are partners in my firm today; they are the backbone of our efforts as we continue to pursue the design of residential architecture at the very highest possible level.

From left: Gary L. Brewer, Roger H. Seifter, Grant F. Marani, Stern, and Randy M. Correll in the Manhattan office of Robert A.M. Stern Architects. Photo: Ben Ritter

It's too bad that the Fountainhead stereotype still seems to prevail in people's impression of our profession, where one architect's name rises above all the rest as though he or she gets up in the morning and does everything from making the coffee to designing the buildings to dealing with contractors to talking with clients, and then miraculously at 6:00 dashes off to the cocktail party-and-dinner circuit, fresh as a daisy. That's not how it really is. Anything I've done, I've done because a host of people helped me, former students and longtime collaborators who are committed to the practice of great residential architecture. —Robert A.M. Stern