Allan Greenberg
Where and when
Allan Greenberg is the 2006 recipient of the Richard H. Driehaus Prize for Architecture and is one of the most important classical architects in practice today. He was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and was educated at the University of Witwatersrand, where he was trained in classical and Gothic architecture. Allan worked for leading Scandinavian modernist architects Jorn Utzon, with whom he worked on the Sydney Opera House, and Viljo Revell. After receiving his Master of Architecture degree from Yale University in 1965, he spent two years in the City of New Haven’s Redevelopment Agency, and later served as Architectural Consultant to Connecticut’s Chief Justice from 1967 to 1979. He received his U.S. citizenship in 1973.
The firm was established in 1972 and has offices in Washington, D.C., New York City, and Greenwich, Connecticut. Its work covers a broad spectrum of buildings throughout the United States and overseas. Projects include master plans, new construction, renovations, restorations, and interior and furniture design for academic, institutional, religious, commercial, residential, and retail clients. Allan approaches each project with an active interest and imagination, delivering to his clients buildings of utility and grace. His work combines contemporary construction techniques and building systems with the best architectural traditions to create solutions that are both timeless and technologically progressive.
In addition to his buildings, Allan’s articles, teaching, and lectures have exerted a strong influence on the study and practice of classical architecture. George Hersey, author and professor of Art History at Yale University, has written:
Greenberg is the most knowing, most serious practitioner of Classicism currently on the scene in this country.… Greenberg belongs in the succession of Charles Follen McKim, Daniel Burnham, Henry Bacon, John Russell Pope, and Arthur Brown. And above all he belongs to the succession of Greece and Rome, of Vignola and Sanmicheli, of Vanvitelli, Ledoux, and Labrouste, to the visionary company of those who play the great game of Classicism.
Allan Greenberg has taught at Yale University’s School of Architecture and School of Law, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Division of Historic Preservation at Columbia University. He has written several books and many articles, both scholarly and popular, on the dynamic and enduring qualities of traditional architecture and design. A monograph of his work was published in 1995. His book George Washington, Architect was published in 1999, and his most recent work, The Architecture of Democracy; American Architecture and the Legacy of the Revolution, was published by Rizzoli in July 2006. A television series based on the book is also in progress.
