Stanley Tigerman was born in Chicago, received his architectural training at Yale, and started his own practice in 1964. He has been teaching in many western universities and is Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Among his innumerable activities he organised the Chicago Seven group of architects and their exhibitions and in 1980 authored the book and exhibition "Late Entries To The Chicago Tribune Competition".
In 1982, in a book he called "Versus", he sought to clarify the American condition, and he feels he is still 'writing' it in his own work as he attempts to clarify dualistic attitudes in architecture. By dualism he means the juxtaposition of opposites, seen simultaneously but in no way synthesised. The highly original designs he uses to illustrate his talk show buildings invariably ruptured into two pieces. Sometimes he uses one to mirror the other; sometimes he juxtaposes two different languages (classical and vernacular, formal and rational); sometimes the dialogue is between abstract and representational elements.
Symbolism is never far away, particularly in the exhibit he has devised for the new German Architecture Museum in Frankfurt.
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