Ernest Edward Burden
August 22, 1934 – February 9, 2022
Ernest E. Burden was born August 22, 1934 in Worcester, Massachusetts to Priscilla and Ernest E. Burden, Sr. He passed away February 9, 2022 in Altamonte Springs, Florida, after a courageous battle with cancer.
Dr. Stephanie Pilat, the Director of OU’s Division of Architecture, says, “Ernie Burden was a designer who imagined building and landscapes that were at once resourceful and pragmatic as well as otherworldly and fantastic. A student of Bruce Goff, Burden’s projects from his years at OU are among the most treasured in the OU Libraries American School Archive today. His ‘Study in Proportion–Transparency, Translucency and Opacity’ completed while a student at OU in the 1950s still looks like an enchanted futuristic landscape today. His visionary work has always carried this potential to transport us into other realms and possible worlds. He was a true Renegade and an American School legend.”
Ernest Burden’s ‘Study in Proportion–Transparency, Translucency and Opacity’
As a child, Ernest was always very interested in drawing and painting. He began his formal training in architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design. After seeing Bruce Goff’s Ford House published in LIFE Magazine, he transferred to the University of Oklahoma, where he studied architecture and design under Bruce Goff from 1952 – 1957.
After graduating from OU, he moved to San Francisco. There he produced architectural and interior designs, earning his license in architecture in 1968. At the same time he was producing visionary drawings and paintings, exhibiting in The Designer’s Gallery, which he owned with several like-minded architects and artist friends. He also later attended the San Francisco Institute of Architecture where he completed his master’s degree in Architecture and Architectural Preservation.
Ernest also produced architectural renderings for clients and photographically documented the destruction of original Victorian houses in the Bay area to make way for ‘urban renewal.’ He was heavily involved in Historic Preservation as well as visualizing the ‘new’ built environment. In his passion for preservation, he was involved in the work of saving and restoring San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts, the subject of his first book. He had a life-long love of architectural detail and ornament.
Around 1970, Ernest moved to New York City, quickly becoming one of the most sought-after architectural illustrators in the country’s top market. His book on the practice of rendering, ARCHITECTURAL DELINEATION: A Photographic Approach to Presentation remained a best-seller in its category for several decades and was used as an essential teaching tool in architecture programs around the world.
While he did not concentrate on design and construction of architectural projects while in New York, he was proud of his formative training and licensure in architecture, which he employed to develop his own properties. He remained licensed in California and New York and was a member of the American Institute of Architects. His work was always centered on aspects of architecture, including his work helping architectural and engineering professionals improve their business practices.
He was the author of over fifty works on architectural design, theory, visualization, restoration and preservation, as well as marketing and communication. Ernest would hold annual conferences to help architects and designers increase their ability to communicate with their clients. He also spoke at the American Institute of Architects and the Society for Marketing Professional Services conventions.
His final and most comprehensive work, which presents the entirety of the curriculum and collected history of his mentor, Bruce Goff, is titled Bruce Goff’s Design Vocabulary: A Synthesis of Music, Art, and Architecture. Published in 2019, the book includes rarely seen photos of Goff’s work and is available in four separate printed editions: “The Early Work (1904-1955)”, “Goff as Teacher (1947-1955)”, “The Later Work (1956-1983)”, and “The Complete Work (1904-1983).”
The “Goff as Teacher” edition includes everything that was part of Goff’s teaching methodology at the University of Oklahoma, including complete text and illustrations from his iconic Arch 273 class. It also features two transcribed lectures given in Goff’s class. Ernest wrote from his own first-hand experience of Goff’s teaching and educational style. He shows what it was like to be an architecture student at the University of Oklahoma in the 1950s, delving into the rich history of the American School and OU’s architecture program.
Ernest also was proud to participate in the OU College of Architecture’s Renegades exhibition and book, which featured the American School of Architecture developed under the leadership of Bruce Goff. Ernest’s work from his time at the American School at OU is featured prominently.
As well as being an incredibly accomplished architect and academic, Ernest Burden was also an abstract-surrealist painter, photographer, traveler, writer, and visual designer, as well as an expert skier, New England ice skating champion, and San Franciscan surfer. He enjoyed classical Baroque music and had a special focus on electronica versions produced by W. Carlos, often scoring presentations to their spirit and rhythm. Ernest also played the organ.
Ernest’s daughter, Analisa, also an OU alum, writes, “Ernie is irreplaceable to all who knew him – and his legacy in seeking to creatively challenge the means and methods of creative communication lives on in his students, colleagues, family, and friends.”
Ernest Burden is survived by his wife of over thirty years, Joy, and his six children, Michelle, Karen, Analisa, Carol, Ernest III, and Chelsea.
Petya Stefanoff, Chair of the Educational Committee with the American Planning Association, Oklahoma Chapter (APA-OK) and Gibbs College PhD candidate, has developed a new training program for local government officials. The program, focused on land use, zoning principles, and land development, recently certified its first graduates with Certified Citizen Planner status.
Gibbs Construction Science and Architecture students recently traveled to Dublin, Ireland, to compete in the Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) Region 8 Student Competition. The team partnered with Czech Technical University and secured third place in the Design-Build category.
Gibbs College is pleased to present the exhibition Vollendorf in Oklahoma: The Architecture of Dean Bryant Vollendorf during the Spring 2026 semester. It will be on display in Gould Hall, on the OU-Norman Campus, from February 16, 2026 - March 13, 2026.
