Robert Stern

Robert A. M. Stern is a practicing architect, historian, and writer. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), and in 2017 received the Topaz Medallion, awarded jointly by the AIA and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture in recognition of outstanding service to architectural education. He has been a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences since 2007 and a member of the American Academy of Arts & Letters since 2011.

Stern served as Dean of the Yale School of Architecture from 1998 to 2016; he was named J. M. Hoppin Professor of Architecture in 2000 and continued teaching until his retirement in 2022, when he was conferred with the title J. M. Hoppin Professor Emeritus of Architecture. Before returning to Yale, where he received his Master of Architecture degree in 1965, Stern taught at Columbia University, where he was Professor of Architecture and Director of the Historic Preservation Program at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation. Stern served from 1984 to 1988 as the first director of Columbia’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture.

Stern has lectured extensively in the United States and abroad on both historical and contemporary topics in architecture, and has published several books, including a five-volume history of the architecture and urbanism of New York City. Stern’s autobiography, Between Memory and Invention, coauthored with Leopoldo Villardi, was published in March 2022. In 1976, 1980, and 1996, he was among the architects selected to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale, and he served as Chair of the International Jury in 2012. In 1986, Stern hosted “Pride of Place: Building the American Dream,” an eight-episode documentary television series on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). Stern served on the Board of Directors of The Walt Disney Company from 1992 to 2003. Stern is a graduate of Columbia University (BA, 1960) and Yale University (MArch, 1965).