Alan Wanzenberg Architect

1970–1980

Alan Wanzenberg was born, raised, and got his early education in Evanston Illinois. In the fall of 1969, he attended University of California graduating from the College of Environmental Design/UC Berkeley in 1973. Academic influences while in attendance at the CED were Christopher Alexander, Roger Montgomery, Sim Van der Ryn, Joseph Esherick, and Marvin Lipofsky.

In 1974, he entered the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. Concurrent to pursuing his master's degree he worked for various architecture firms including Ben Thompson, SOM, Larry Booth, Jose Luis Sert and Cambridge Seven. Academic influences were: Gerhard Kalmann, Colin Rowe, James Sterling among others. He graduated in 1978.

Later that fall, he was employed at I.M. Pei and Partners working on the Portland Museum of Fine Art and the New York Convention Center.

1981–1996

Jed Johnson and Alan Wanzenberg met in 1980. They quickly established a professional and personal relationship. Wanzenberg did the architecture and Johnson did the interior decor. In the succeeding years, it was formalized into Johnson/Wanzenberg, and then later became Jed Johnson and Associates and Alan Wanzenberg Architects PC.

The work was plentiful throughout the 80s and early 90s. Many commissions were in Greenwich, Connecticut, but also New York City, the Caribbean, Europe, and elsewhere. Always residential in scope and with the intentional focus on beautifully executed work that drew on historical references with reinvigorated contemporary design and was extensively published at the time and subsequently.

1997–2016

After Johnson’s untimely death in 1996, Wanzenberg restructured his firm to include interior design with a subsidiary company named Alan Wanzenberg Design LLC. It continued to grow with extensive residential commissions located throughout the United States, but also in Australia, Switzerland, and Costa Rica. The firm worked on numerous commissions for high profile developments, such as 150 Charles, 10 Madison Square West, work at the General Theological Seminary for the Brodsky Organization, and consultant work in these areas.

2017–Present

In late 2016 Wanzenberg restructured his firm. It was downsized to a handful of highly experienced associates. They reconstructed a practice, which is based on remote work with ongoing in-person workshops that would occur throughout the design and construction process. It was a matter of advancing Design scopes, reviewing exhaustively, all the material involved, setting deliverables for future meetings, and ultimately producing work of the caliber that had been done throughout the history of the firm. This was enthusiastically received by clients and people at the firm. It resulted in a highly nimble and strategic business focus that kept the high design standards developed in the prior decades.