RICHARD SAUL WURMAN, AIA (1935–)

Wurman was born in Philadelphia PA and graduated from Cheltenham High School in 1953. He earned a BA and MA in architecture rom the University of Pennsylvania, finishing with highest honors in 1959 and winning the Arthur Spayd Brooke Gold Medal. He worked 1959-1960 for Howell Lewis Shay and Associates, then for Louis I. Kahn from 1960-1962, traveling to London to help build Kahn's floating concert hall. He taught 1962-1964 at NC State University; at Princeton 1965-1966. In 1963 Wurman joined Penn classmates John Murphy and Alan Levy to form Murphy Levy Wurman.

The firm designed the lobby interior and two other floors of Philadelphia's 1700 Market Street tower, the Penn's Landing plan, and a remarkable group of beach houses on Long Beach Island NJ.  Wurman practiced architecture for roughly 13 years before turning to "information architecture," a term he coined to describe the science of presenting information for better understanding.  He chaired the 1972 Aspen design conference, the 1976 AIA convention, and he went on to write, design, and publish over 90 books and create the TED and TEDMED conferences. among many other group learning methodologies. He was later Dean of the School of Environmental Design at Cal Poly. Wurman edited several publications on Kahn, including the seminal collection of Kahn's words, What Will Be Has Always Been (1986). He received the AIGA Gold Medal and the Cooper Hewitt Lifetime Achievement Award.  Wurman lives in Golden Beach FL. 

A Progressive Architecture article covered many of these in 1970.

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1968 - The Robert and Barbara Boichick Kulicke House, aka Giant Stair House, 8404 Bay Terrace, Harvey Cedars NJ.  This was Wurman's first residential commission.  Sold around 2006 to Barbar Cicco.  Color photos by Margaret Buchholz.

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