Paul L. Whalen, FAIA

Paul Whalen, Partner, joined Robert A.M. Stern Architects in 1981 and has been a key leader in the firm’s growth from a staff of 15 to over 240 today.

Mr. Whalen has a keen interest and focus on multifamily buildings, master planning, the worlds where residential life extends from houses to neighborhoods, and the temporary fantasy provided by hotels and resorts. As an adopted New Yorker, he brings his passion for the best of urban life, from villages to big cities, to everything he does.

While single family houses on large lots have their place, Mr. Whalen understands the importance of creating the best city and village living experience for all—partly through his love of urbanism, but also through his conviction that density is a more efficient and sustainable way to live, and at the heart of civilization itself. He believes a key tool to successful city design is understanding the character and history of a place, its underlying urban principles, and the languages of architecture, from classicism in all its iterations to the abstractions of the 20th and 21st centuries.

As a partner, Mr. Whalen has realized projects across a range of scales and architectural expression and led some of the firm’s most prominent planning and multifamily residential projects. This includes the town of Celebration, Florida, and Heart of Lake, a new model for neighborhood development in Xiamen, China, that combines lessons from traditional local villages with planning principles gleaned from Manhattan and early 20th-century China.

Mr. Whalen has helped reshape New York City with his work on the ongoing revitalization of the theater block of New York’s 42nd Street, and as leader of the firm’s high-rise apartment houses along the southern edge of Central Park, including 15 Central Park West, 220 Central Park South, and 520 Park Avenue. Further north, 1228 Madison Avenue, the Bellemont, 20 East End Avenue, 255 East 77th Street, and 200 East 83rd Street all build on, extend, and translate the architectural traditions of the Upper East and Upper West Side into the 21st century.

In Tribeca, 30 Park Place combines a five-star Four Seasons hotel with condo units in a sleek tower; Superior Ink brings the industrial aesthetic of Greenwich Village’s historic factories to townhouses and an apartment house; Abingdon House recontextualizes brick and steel to deliver an apartment tower that dialogues with the neighboring High Line; the Cortland extends the iconic London Terrace Gardens to the West Chelsea waterfront; and 16 5th Avenue will be a dignified addition to Greenwich Village’s urban fabric once complete. Uptown, his projects include One Museum Mile and the Claremont. Historic restorations with updated floor plans include 18 Gramercy Park and The Belnord.

Mr. Whalen has also led the firm’s multifamily growth into other American cities, including Los Angeles (The Century), Dallas (The Ritz Carlton), Houston (The Woodlands), Atlanta (The Waldorf Astoria Buckhead), Minneapolis (Eleven), and Boston (The Clarendon condominiums and the Newbury of Brookline seniors’ residences). During the recent boom in South Florida, Mr. Whalen brought the firm’s high-quality residential buildings, reinterpreted for a sub-tropical climate, to West Palm Beach (South Flagler House), Miami (St. Regis Residences), and Miami Beach (The Shore Club).

In Lima, Peru, multiple buildings have either been built or are under construction in the historic residential community of San Isidro, with the goal of increasing density while connecting to the local tradition of single-family masonry. Projects include Alfredo Salazar, 561 Avenida Pezet, 375 Avenida Pezet, Calle Blas Cerdeña, and 310 Carlos Graña. The largest of these, a three-building master plan focused on a private garden—195 Pezet—will be completed at the end of 2025.

Leadership of the firm’s work in Asia includes multiple projects in Hong Kong, including an office building at 50 Connaught Road; the Morgan, a residential building; the Hong Golf and Tennis Academy; and the master-planned community at One Stanley. The firm’s work in China began with Heart of Lake, with successive planning projects in the cities of Shanghai, Chongqing, Dalian, Tianjin, and Jinjiang.

Mr. Whalen has lectured on topics as diverse as high-rise urbanism, the history of the New York City apartment building, 19th-century Scottish country houses, and potential ways to redevelop Havana’s industrial waterfront. He is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation in New York, which organizes lectures, travel, and educational events in support of the museum in London.