Stephen Joseph Wanat was born in Philadelphia, USA, in 1940. He attended Bound Brook High School, before studying at Princeton University, where he achieved High Honors in Architecture, in 1962. He then qualified at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (1965) before transferring to the Civic Design Program at the University of Pennsylvania, which entailed spending 1 year with City Planning students and 1 year with the Masters architecture class under Louis Kahn. Following completion of this course, Wanat enrolled on the 1966-67, postgraduate ‘General Design’ course run by the Architectural Association’s Department of Development and Tropical Studies, in London, UK. Whilst precise details of Stephen’s subsequent career are not yet known to us, it appears that he moved to Tiburon, California in the late 1970s and established a career in urban planning, retaining a close connection with the Northern Section of the California Chapter of the American Planning Association. Writing in 2017, Stephen describes his career in terms of experience with development, environmental and traffic issues and as having taught urban planning and architecture at university level. He also describes working for both large and small companies, and as a consultant in the US and internationally. In 1990 he is known to have prepared a master plan and urban design plan for the redevelopment of a 17 acre textile factory site outside Taipai, Taiwan – planning 7.5 million sq. feet of space, distributed across 25 high-rise buildings, complete with public plaza, large shopping centre and parks.

Sources

• Archives, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library (High Honors)
• Architectural Association Student Register, 1945-71. AA Archives
• Architectural Association Council Minutes, 24th July, 1967. AA Archives
• Wanat, Stephen J.; Undergraduate Academic Files, Series 5, AC198-05, Princeton University
• Princeton Weekley, 1964, Vol. 52, No. 12, Dec 8th, p58
• Harvard Alumni Directory, 1965, p1588
• Northern News (Northern Sector, California Chapter, American Planning Association), June 1990, Vol. 8, No. 60, p4.