12/04/2025
As we mourn, it has been heartwarming to read the heartfelt tributes to Robert A.M. Stern, M.Arch ’65, Dean Emeritus and J.M. Hoppin Professor Emeritus (1939–2025). The story of his trajectory could fill many books: he was an alumnus of the Yale School of Architecture, an architect who revolutionized the profession (more than once), and a storied dean for a record eighteen-year tenure. We’ve collected many of these stories on a tribute webpage (https://www.architecture.yale.edu/news/robert-am-stern-1939-2025) including one by his dear friend Penny Laurans, for Yale News; another by Paul Goldberger (BA ’72), for the New York Times; and one by his co-author and biographer Leopoldo Villardi, for Architectural Record, to name a few. We invite you to send in remembrances of your own.
Robert A.M. Stern studied at Yale in the early 1960s under architecture chair Paul Rudolph. This was what Bob himself termed “a time of heroics”: he was present for the 1963 dedication of Rudolph’s Art and Architecture building; the jury for Stern’s thesis review included Serge Chermayeff, Paul Rudolph, Robert Venturi, Henry Cobb, and King-lui Wu and was the last review Rudolph attended before retiring; and he edited Perspecta 9/10, the first double-issue of Perspecta, which included an excerpt from Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, and which many credit for creating a theoretical background for Postmodernism in architecture.
Back at Yale as dean, Stern emphasized a culture of pluralism and debate. He created new endowed chairs for visiting faculty; reinvigorated Perspecta, while creating new publications like Constructs and studio books; instituted robust public programs, including symposia and lectures, along with an equally robust culture of hospitality; he instituted new programs allowing students to travel as part of their studies; and completed the renovation of the A+A Building, rededicating it as Paul Rudolph Hall. The new residential colleges RAMSA designed for Yale, Benjamin Franklin and Pauli Murray colleges, are home to 1,000 students per year; at the architecture school, during his eighteen years as dean, Bob educated an entire generation.
After his deanship, Stern continued his support for the School, especially for publications, exhibitions, and public programs. We are tremendously grateful to Bob—for his leadership, for his quiet generosity, and for leaving YSoA in a position to continue to grow and support future generations of architects, designers, and scholars.
The School will be collecting remembrances of Dean Stern, to be shared with his family, to be posted online, as well as for potential publication in Constructs. Please send your remembrances, photos, and thoughts to [email protected].
