Robert A.M. Stern to design George W. Bush library

The selection of Robert A.M. Stern to design the library for George W. Bush was stunningly obvious.
The Dallas Morning News

The Dallas Morning News Article…

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Quick take: David Dillon
By David Dillon
Published: August 29, 2007

The selection of Robert A.M. Stern to design the library for George W. Bush was stunningly obvious.

The head of a high-profile New York firm known for historic designs, Mr. Stern seems a perfect match for SMU, a school that insists on red brick collegiate Georgian architecture.

Dallasites won’t have to travel far to get an idea of what Mr. Stern may cook up here.

The Stern firm designed the Ritz-Carlton on McKinney Avenue, with its tissue paper Deco facade but sumptuous lobby.

It also designed for lawyer Fred Baron a 22,000-square-foot neo-Georgian estate on Preston Road – a mansion that the American Institute of Architects guide describes as a “stray building from the Southern Methodist University campus.”

What the guide doesn’t say is that it sits next to an impeccably machined steel and glass house that Richard Meier designed for local art collector and patron Howard Rachofsky. (Mr. Stern once worked for Mr. Meier.) As a snapshot of Dallas’ bipolar architectural culture, the juxtaposition is perfect.

Mr. Stern came to prominence in the late 1970s and early 1980s with a series of handsomely detailed shingle-style houses, mainly in New England and on Long Island. He branched out into schools, churches, museums and office buildings, most mining historical sources ranging from classical Greece and Rome to 1930s New York. He also served as the jaunty host of the popular PBS series Pride of Place and ventured into entertainment architecture with hotels and offices for Walt Disney Co.

In winning the competition, Mr. Stern beat out a dozen or so firms that included large commercial offices, small boutique practices, modernists, traditionalists and regionalists.

The modernists knew they didn’t stand a chance, and most dropped out immediately. Others said publicly they weren’t qualified.

Given the client and the circumstances, choosing a widely recognized traditionalist who knows the rules and isn’t likely to rock the ship of state is the most one could expect.

David Dillon is an architecture writer in Amherst, Mass.