Our Founding Partner

In 1969, Bob established the firm known today as RAMSA, infusing his values into its DNA: discerning thought and a high standard of excellence; a responsibility to the communities in which we build; the blending of past, present, and future through design; and a culture that challenges each individual to bring their best each day.

Through the years, Bob’s role in the firm naturally evolved with the addition of new practices, partners, and studios. Even as he stepped back from daily involvement in the firm’s projects, Bob remained delighted to see regular updates on the work being produced by the 250+ designers who carry forth his name and legacy.

An Artist of Memory and Invention

Bob Stern believed that design is an ongoing dialogue between memory and invention—a bridge between what has been and what could be. He defied passing trends, remaining steadfast in a timeless and contextual approach that he believed was an architect’s responsibility to society. He understood that every place has a unique history and character that cannot be expressed with a singular style. 

Through discerning study of architectural languages, urbanism, and culture, he blended time-honored traditions with innovative ideas to create structures that respect and enrich their surroundings. The firm’s portfolio reflects a lasting legacy of buildings that belong, places imbued with purpose, and work that stands the test of time.

An Inspiration to Multiple Generations

Bob’s impactful teaching career began in 1970 and spanned both of his alma maters: Columbia University and the Yale School of Architecture. 

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 was named director of the university’s Historic Preservation Program.

From 1998 to 2016, Bob served as Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, commuting between New Haven and Manhattan to remain hands-on in his firm’s practice. In the years before his passing, he donated countless artifacts and records to the Yale Archives to benefit students and researchers for decades to come.

A Steward of Architectural History

As a thoughtful student of history and a passionate educator, Bob was also a prolific author, speaker, and exhibitor.

His profound interest in New York City’s architecture and urbanism led to the expansive series of New York books published between 1983 and 2025: New York 1880; New York 1900; New York 1930 (which was nominated for a National Book Award); New York 1960; New York 2000; and the most recent New York 2020. 

Bob’s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Deutsches Architekturmuseum, the Centre Pompidou, the Denver Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. 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 Bob hosted Pride of Place: Building the American Dream, an eight-part, eight-hour documentary series aired on PBS.

His Own Words

Much will be written about Bob Stern’s legacy, impact, and design philosophy, but perhaps the most fitting summation was penned by the man himself in the closing of his memoir Between Memory and Invention: My Journey in Architecture;

“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. 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. 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. Architecture is the artful synthesis of time-honored traditions and immediate circumstance—it is a guardian of cultural continuity; not a lithic seismograph measuring civilization’s every tremor […] The dialogue between old and new, between what was and what is and what will be, is the conversation across time that I have continuously sought to advance. Continually mindful of Jay Gatsby’s quest, ‘we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’” - Robert A.M. Stern