Robin Dripps ’60

Robin Dripps is the T. David Fitz-Gibbon Professor of Architecture at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. She teaches within the studio design sequence, lectures on architectural theory, and directs a seminar on the relationship between design intent and detail manifestation. Robin has been a School of Architecture faculty member since 1970 and where she continues to challenge and inspire students through her exemplary teaching. The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) honored her teaching with its Distinguished Professorship Award in 1992. In 2017, Robin was named Most Admired Educator by Design Intelligence. Robin was particularly recognized for her “outstanding contribution to the education and development of future practitioners, and for furthering the professions of architecture, engineering, construction and design.” 

Educated at Princeton (B.A. in architecture) and the University of Pennsylvania (M.A. in architecture), she has been writing and lecturing on the structure of myth as a fundamental basis for architectural form. This work was published as The First House: Myth, Paradigm, and the Task of Architecture, where it received a Phi Beta Kappa book award in 1999.

Robin is also the designer and driver of a 1934 Ford land-speed race car that has held two world speed records. Her record-chasing race car was featured in the Wall Street Journal.