{"id":410881,"date":"2025-11-28T15:58:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T15:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/410881\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T15:58:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T15:58:23","slug":"architect-robert-a-m-stern-who-designed-the-comcast-center-and-museum-of-the-american-revolution-has-died-at-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/410881\/","title":{"rendered":"Architect Robert A.M. Stern, who designed the Comcast Center and Museum of the American Revolution, has died at 86"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert A.M. Stern, 86, a leading architect over the past six decades who left his imprint on Philadelphia by designing the Comcast Center and the Museum of the American Revolution among other notable buildings, died Thursday, Nov. 27, at home in Manhattan after a brief pulmonary illness<\/a>, his family said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Stern also wrote respected architectural histories, taught at Columbia and Yale universities, and was dean of Yale\u2019s School of Architecture from 1998 to 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cBob had a great sensitivity to urbanism in design. You can see that in Philadelphia, where his work certainly sits well where it is placed,\u201d said developer John Gattuso, who worked closely with Mr. Stern on the Comcast Center, completed in 2008, the redevelopment of the Navy Yard, and other projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was less concerned with theatrical architecture, the gymnastics, and understood how buildings contribute to a sense of place that resonates with people,\u201d he said. For that reason, Gattuso said, \u201che tended to be underappreciated.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 975-foot-tall shimmering Comcast Center, the company\u2019s original skyscraper<\/a> on JFK Boulevard, straddles the tracks and concourse of Suburban Station, a commuter gateway to the city. An airy 120-foot glass atrium connects the building to the station, providing for a dramatic arrival from below, and overlooks a public plaza. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Comcast Center may be his finest work in Philadelphia,\u201d said architecture critic Inga Saffron, who writes for The Inquirer. \u201cThe scale is right. It\u2019s not fat. It\u2019s tapered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Classical indentations in the 58-story building draw the eye upward, she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a good dignified skyscraper \u2026 Buildings like this are embedded in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Stern\u2019s firm was also known for luxury apartment towers. In Manhattan they include 15 Central Park West<\/a>, a limestone-clad condominium at the southwest corner of Central Park that was internationally hailed.<\/p>\n

The firm\u2019s work also includes university buildings, including the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia; Weill Hall at the University of Michigan; and Miller Hall at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., among many others.<\/p>\n

In Philadelphia, Mr. Stern\u2019s firm prepared the master plan for the Navy Yard, and designed buildings on Crescent Drive in that development and the 10 Rittenhouse condominium, as well as the American Water tower on the Camden Waterfront.<\/p>\n

Mr. Stern was a proponent of post-modernism, a style of architecture that incorporated classical elements. He moved further in that direction as his career went on.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia\u2019s Museum of the American Revolution was built in a Georgian style. But to Saffron, it was perhaps too much, and more out of place to the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe embraces classicism more and more,\u201d Saffron said. In the case of the museum, \u201cIt\u2019s a schlocky classicism,\u201d in contrast to the relatively modest scale of the historic buildings in Old City<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like Independence Hall on steroids,\u201d Saffron said.<\/p>\n

The final Robert A.M. Stern Architects design in Philadelphia is nearing completion, a massive life sciences research building at Drexel University<\/a>, on Cuthbert Street, by Gattuso Development Partners.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the New York Times when he was 84, Mr. Stern said he still wasn\u2019t using a computer and drew \u201ceverything by hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born in Brooklyn on May 23, 1939, Mr. Stern earned a bachelor\u2019s degree from Columbia and a master\u2019s in architecture from Yale. In 1966, he married photographer Lynn Gimbel Solinger, a granddaughter of Bernard Gimbel, the department store magnate. They had a son, Nicholas, and later divorced.<\/p>\n

Mr. Stern is survived by his son, three grandchildren, and other relatives.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post contributed to this article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert A.M. Stern, 86, a leading architect over the past six decades who left his imprint on Philadelphia…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":410882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2830,1311,193272,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-410881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-robert-am-stern-architect-comcast-center-placemaking-urbanism","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115628153530789270","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}