Remembering Robert A.M. Stern, Starchitect Who Revived Limestone Glamour

Architect Robert A.M. Stern, who brought a new dawn of luxury to New York City’s skyline, died Thanksgiving Day at the age of 86.

The cause was a brief pulmonary illness, his son, Nicholas, told The New York Times.

Throughout his career, Stern — who founded the eponymous firm Robert A.M. Stern Architects in 1969 — became known as one of the most eminent postmodern architects, weaving classical elements into contemporary buildings.

Among his most prominent works is Zeckendorf's 15 Central Park West, a luxury condominium that sits between 61st and 62nd streets and was nicknamed “Limestone Jesus” because of its commercial and critical appeal. The building consists of a 19-story structure, dubbed “the House,” and a 35-story tower. Sales of the roughly 200 apartments, including to a plethora of celebrities, topped $2B.

He was also behind 220 Central Park South, Vornado Realty Trust’s 70-story Billionaires' Row development. The ultraluxe supertall contains the penthouse that Citadel hedge fund founder Ken Griffin bought for $238M in 2019, which still holds the record for the most expensive U.S. home ever sold. 

Both feature a facade made of limestone, a material that Stern expressed an appreciation for at a time when glass boxes were rising across Manhattan. Architects had largely pivoted away from traditional masonry following World War II, prior to RAMSA’s revival of it. 

“They take the light in a beautiful way, and they look solid,” he told Commercial Observer in 2016. “They don’t look like buildings you can open with a can opener.”

Stern was adamant that buildings must “engage with the larger whole.” As a result, under the skin, his projects were equipped with open-plan layouts, state-of-the-art amenity floors and hotel-like lobbies.  

“Many modernist works of our time tend to be self-important objects, and that’s a real quarrel that I have,” he told the Times in 2007.

In his memoir, Between Memory and Invention: My Journey in Architecture, Stern wrote about the relationship between the old and the new, calling it “the conversation across time that I have continuously sought to advance.”

“Although the inescapable facts of historical circumstance compel us to be modern, to make a building only about its own moment is to doom it to be forgotten in another,” Stern wrote.

Still, he remained candid in voicing his distaste for futuristic and sleek styles that have come into fashion. In his interview with CO, he said he loved Grand Central Terminal and disliked The Oculus, the skeletonlike shopping mall in the World Trade Center, and Hudson Yards.

“What is there to smile about?” Stern told CO, speaking about the megaproject. “My view of the Hudson [River] is gone.”

He was traditional in his process too. At age 84, he told the Times that he still drew everything by hand. 

But like his projects, even he couldn’t avoid some of the more modern adornments. Stern designed Disney World’s Yacht and Beach Club resorts in Florida, and he would wear a Disney wristwatch that he was gifted while serving on the company’s board of directors, according to CO. 

Stern’s portfolio also includes the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the Comcast Center and Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia.

Stern taught at both of his alma maters, Columbia University and the Yale School of Architecture, beginning his teaching career in 1970.

In 1984, he was appointed the first director of Columbia’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture. In 1990, he became director of the M. Arch. Advanced Studio, and in 1991, he was named director of the university’s historic preservation program.

Between 1998 and 2016, Stern was Dean of the Yale School of Architecture. Throughout that time, he commuted between New Haven, Connecticut, and Manhattan to lead his firm, which has grown to employ more than 250 designers. 

Even in his old age, Stern never abandoned New York City. He died in his Manhattan home Thursday.

“In my belief that architecture is a never-ending obsession, I regret that the buildings could not have been a little better, that the books could not have been a little clearer,” he wrote in his memoir. “But I pride myself in sticking to principles — I have no regrets over staying true to my conviction that architecture cannot flourish so long as architects believe they stand before a tabula rasa, so long as they believe that architecture is just the product of an individual program, individual talent, and individual personality.”

“It is much more — architecture is part of a continuum.”