American, b. 1956
Stan Allen holds degrees from Brown University, The Cooper Union and Princeton. In 1991, after working for Richard Meier in New York and Rafael Moneo in Madrid, he established an independent architectural practice. Since that time he has pursued parallel careers as architect, educator and writer. He has taught at Harvard, Columbia and Princeton, and from 2002 – 2012 served as Dean of the School of Architecture at Princeton.
Prior to his arrival at Princeton, Allen was director of the Advanced Design Program at the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University. He is the author of Points + Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City, and, most recently, Landform Building: Architecture’s New Terrain. He heads the firm Stan Allen Architect, which has completed houses in New York and Los Angeles. Other projects include buildings for the Botanical Garden at the University of Puerto Rico, a contemporary Music Center in Taiwan, and ongoing architectural work at Fresh Kills Reserve in Staten Island. Responding to the complexity of the modern city in creative ways, Allen has developed an extensive catalog of urbanistic strategies, in particular looking at field theory, landscape architecture, and ecology as models to revitalize the practices of urban design.
After stepping down from the Princeton Deanship, Allen relocated to a new studio in the Hudson River Valley. Current design work is focused on projects for artist clients and a more direct engagement with the natural landscape. This means a smaller office, and a more hands-on way of working: both in the studio and on site. This recent work builds on his long standing engagement with landscape and ecology; it offers an alternative way of understanding the relationship between architecture and landscape, now through the lens of the American vernacular and a sense of local history.
Prior to his arrival at Princeton, Allen was director of the Advanced Design Program at the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University. He is the author of Points + Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City, and, most recently, Landform Building: Architecture’s New Terrain. He heads the firm Stan Allen Architect, which has completed houses in New York and Los Angeles. Other projects include buildings for the Botanical Garden at the University of Puerto Rico, a contemporary Music Center in Taiwan, and ongoing architectural work at Fresh Kills Reserve in Staten Island. Responding to the complexity of the modern city in creative ways, Allen has developed an extensive catalog of urbanistic strategies, in particular looking at field theory, landscape architecture, and ecology as models to revitalize the practices of urban design.
After stepping down from the Princeton Deanship, Allen relocated to a new studio in the Hudson River Valley. Current design work is focused on projects for artist clients and a more direct engagement with the natural landscape. This means a smaller office, and a more hands-on way of working: both in the studio and on site. This recent work builds on his long standing engagement with landscape and ecology; it offers an alternative way of understanding the relationship between architecture and landscape, now through the lens of the American vernacular and a sense of local history.
