Ahern, Richard D.

Richard Ahern was born on the 4th of July 1927 in Medford, Massachusetts, and spent his early years in Washington, D.C. He was in the U.S. Navy from 1945 to 1946, after which he attended the University of Maryland for one year. Ahern then transferred to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he majored in architecture and received a B.S. in 1950. The next two years were spent studying at the Technische Hochschule in Austria, where he received a doctorate in technology. He apprenticed with two architectural firms in Washington, D.C. from 1952 to 1954, taught as an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Kent State University from 1954 to 1957, and worked for the City Plan Commission for the City of Detroit from 1957 to 1960, and again in 1962.

Ahern moved to Ann Arbor in 1962, following a year-long trip during which he visited approximately 20 countries in Asia. Soon after his arrival, he moved into a large unimproved studio space at 336 1/2 South State Street, where he would continue to live and work for the remaining 42 years of his life.

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