He will be fondly remembered by his colleagues and friends in the Department of Architecture at the University of Cambridge where he studied between 1960-66.
While in Cambridge, Vidler was taught by Colin Rowe, whose lectures influenced his work as a historian, and shared the classroom with Nicholas Bullock and Peter Eisenman, who was doing his PhD at the time. After graduating from Cambridge, Vidler went to TU Delft, where he received a PhD, and later moved to the United States of America where he became an influential academic and the Chair of important institutions: Princeton University’s School of Architecture (1965–1993); Chair of the department of art history at UCLA (1992–2002); Dean of Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (1997–1998); and Dean of the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at Cooper Union (2001–2013).
In addition to his work as an educator, Vidler was a prolific author leaving a legacy of outstanding books, a list which includes The Writing of the Walls: Architectural Theory in the Late Enlightenment (1987); The Architectural Uncanny: Essays in the Modern Unhomely(1992); Warped Space: Architecture and Anxiety in Modern Culture (2000); Histories of the Immediate Present: Inventing Architectural Modernism (2008); James Frazer Stirling: Notes from the Archive(2010); and The Scenes of the Street and other Essays (2011).
Anthony Vidler’s work has influenced several generations of architects and will remain an obligatory reference to many more. He will be sadly missed.