Spitzer Stars
Deborah Berke
Master of Urban Planning in Urban Design (1984)
Biography :
Deborah Berke, dean of the Yale School of Architecture, has had an illustrious career as a practitioner and educator. Recognition of her work includes, in 2013, the first Berkeley Rupp Prize, given by the University of California, Berkeley, to an architect who has advanced the position of women in the profession and whose work emphasizes a commitment to sustainability and community.
She was the recipient of the 2025 AIA Gold Medal, the organization’s highest honor, and she was also the recipient of the 2022 AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion for Architectural Education, the highest honor for architectural education. Berke is the founder of the New York-based architecture firm TenBerke, which in 2017 received a National Design Award from the Cooper Hewitt, the Smithsonian Design Museum. She is on the board of the James Howell Foundation and is an honorary trustee of the Norman Foster Foundation. She is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a member
of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
“At whichever school of architecture, private, public, large or small, in the United States or not in the United States, the goal is to educate our students as best as possible in the skills they have and the ways they can address the problems of the world, and then to launch them so that they can take on those problems” (PLATFORM, 2023).
Career Highlights :
- Marianne Boesky Gallery building, New York City
- Irwin Union Bank, Columbus, Indiana
- Yale School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut
- 21c Museum Hotels across the South and Midwest
- Cummins Distribution Headquarters, Indianapolis, Indiana
- Rockefeller Arts Center at SUNY Fredonia
Selected Publications :
- Architecture of the Everyday (with Steven Harris)
- House Rules: An Architect’s Guide to Modern Life
- Transform: Promising Places, Second Chances, and the Architecture of Transformational Change (with Thomas de Monchaux)