Robert A.M. Stern’s Journey in Architecture: A Conversation with Barry Bergdoll

Robert A.M. Stern’s newly published autobiography, Between Memory and Invention: My Journey in Architecture (Monacelli, 2022), surveys his life and seismic role in the field of architecture from the 1960s to the present. On Friday, April 22 at 6:00 PM, join the acclaimed architect for an evening of discussion with Center for Architecture President Barry Bergdoll as they explore Stern’s much-anticipated memoir.

By turns thoughtful and irreverent, Stern’s candid account highlights the often-overlooked role that an architect’s life plays in shaping the buildings they produce. Replete with personal insights and humor, Between Memory and Invention details Stern’s youthful efforts to redraw house plans in real estate ads, stories about the mentors who shaped his thinking, his struggle to launch an architecture practice in the 1970s amid a recession, and his more than half-century of practice as an architect, educator, and historian.

Martinis will accompany the lecture and copies of the book will be available for purchase after the event.

Speaker:
Robert A.M. Stern, FAIA, Founder, Robert A.M. Stern Architects

Interviewer:
Barry Bergdoll, Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History, Columbia Unviersity 

About the Speakers:

Barry Bergdoll is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University and curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where from 2007 to 2013 he served as Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design. Bergdoll graduated from Columbia University in 1977 and studied at King’s College, Cambridge University on a Kellett Fellowship from 1977 to 79 before returning to Columbia to complete his PhD in 1986. His interests center on modern architectural history, with a particular emphasis on France and Germany since 1789. Trained in art history rather than architecture, he has an approach most closely allied with cultural history and the history and sociology of professions. Bergdoll’s interests also include the intersections of architecture and new technologies and cultures representations in the modern period, especially photography and film. He has worked on several film productions about architecture, in addition to curating  numerous exhibitions. He is currently working on the transformation of the Mellon Lecutures delivered at the National Gallery into a book on the history and problematics of exhibiting architecture. Other books include his widely used textbook European Architecture 1750-1890 in the Oxford History of Art, and studies on Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Mies van der Rohe, and other major figures of 19th- and 20th-century architecture.

Robert A. M. Stern is a practicing architect, teacher, and writer. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, 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. Stern is the 2011 Driehaus Prize laureate and in 2008 received the tenth Vincent Scully Prize from the National Building Museum. In 2007, he received both the Athena Award from the Congress for the New Urbanism and the Board of Directors’ Honor from the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. 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. Before returning to Yale, where he received his Master of Architecture degree in 1965, he was Professor of Architecture and Director of the Historic Preservation Program at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University. 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 (Braziller, 1969; revised edition, 1977); George Howe: Toward a Modern American Architecture (Yale University Press, 1975); Modern Classicism (London: Thames & Hudson; New York: Rizzoli, 1988); The Philip Johnson Tapes: Interviews by Robert A. M. Stern (Monacelli, 2008); Architecture on the Edge of Postmodernism: Collected Essays 1964–1988 (Yale University Press, 2009); Tradition and Invention in Architecture: Conversations and Essays (Yale University Press, 2011), and five books on the architectural and urban history of New York City.

This event is offered in person; proof of complete COVID-19 vaccination (for attendees ages 5 and up) with photo ID for adults is required to attend in person. Food and beverages will be served. Face masks are required for visitors ages 2-5, and optional for those vaccinated. Read our full Health and Safety Protocol here.