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Stephen Rustow

Professor

Stephen Rustow is a principal of Museoplan, which he founded as SRA Consultancy in 2006; it is the successor firm to SRA, established in 1998. 

An architect and planner with twenty-five years of experience, much of Mr. Rustow’s work has focused on museums. Before founding Museoplan, he was a Sr. Associate Principal with Kohn Pedersen Fox and directed that firm’s work on the renovation and expansion of the Museum of Modern Art in New York with Taniguchi Associates. Among his responsibilities were the detailing of the museum‘s galleries, the renovation of its original building and celebrated sculpture garden, and the reprogramming and design of MoMA’s Education Wing.  He led the construction supervision team for the entire project over its seven-year duration. Until 1998, Mr. Rustow was an Associate Partner in charge of design with Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, and was a senior designer on several of that firm’s museum projects, most notably the additions to and renovation of the Louvre.  Mr. Rustow became Director of the Paris Office of PCF&P in 1990 and was in charge of the second phase of the Louvre expansion, the Richelieu Wing, for which he designed the galleries of Oriental Antiquities, Islamic Art and the French and Northern Schools of Painting. Mr. Rustow also designed the Tuileries Terrace and was the supervising designer of the Carrousel Gardens, including the installation of the State collection of Maillol bronzes. Upon his return to New York, Mr. Rustow led the design efforts on three other museum projects for Pei Cobb Freed.

Mr. Rustow is currently a Professor of Architecture at Cooper Union where he also chaired the Feltman Seminar on Light in 2006 and 2007.  He was previously a lecturer and studio critic for six years in Columbia University’s Paris Studio program, and has served as an invited juror in design studios and as a lecturer at Columbia, Cornell, Princeton and UP 3 and 8 in Paris. He has written and lectured on a variety of topics related to the design of museums including lighting, exhibition design and the role of the museum in urban development.

After completing an undergraduate degree with high honors in Anthropology at the University of Rochester, Mr. Rustow received Masters degrees in Architecture and in Urban Planning from M.I.T. in 1979, where he was also awarded an Institute Fellowship. He was an invited participant in the inaugural semester of ILAUD in Urbino, Italy in 1976. From 1974 to 1977, concurrently with his graduate studies, he was a Fellow of the National Science Foundation.

Mr. Rustow is a registered architect in the state of New York and holds certification from National Council of Architectural Registration Boards; he is a member of the American Institute of Architects and a past member of the Ordre des Architectes in France. He is also an urban planner, a past member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, and a member of the American Planning Association.

Projects & Links

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  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.