Info/Brief History – Antoyan Architecture

ROBERT (ROBBY) STEVEN ANTOYAN
BORN: AUGUST 27, 1954

Architecture, as it pertains to buildings and design, has such a broad meaning to me. It includes the full spectrum from the very serious of designs to the very playfull. Most of all, however, the one common element is the level of commitment required, both in time and emotion, to perform the necessary work in order achieve the expected results.A successful project, for me, is one that meets all (at a minimum) of the client’s requirements for function and cost while additionally meeting my requirements regarding its aesthetics and creativity. Not all of my projects will be featured in my portfolio, yet most important is that I know I did the best I could with the requirements given to me on all of my projects.I have been fortunate to have been a part of a variety of project types and sizes over the years. From simple residential remodels to complex institutional projects. I am always looking at everything with its Architecture in mind. Buildings (duh), vehicles, trees, clouds, people, furniture. I can’t help it. It does not turn on and off like a switch anymore. There is always something new to learn.My mother’s younger sister, Auntie ‘V’, started to program me towards Architecture during the late 50’s and early 60’s by gifting me toys like the erector sets, plastic bricks sets and the classic Lincoln Logs. It was much later I found out it was invented by John Lloyd Wright in 1918. Auntie ‘V’ would always say after I finished a project, “Robby, you will make a great Architect”. Always. I happened to bicycle past a newly constructed office building at the southeast corner of Tuolomne and ‘O’ streets one day in the early 1960’s. I was dumbfounded. It was a two story elevated cylindrical office building with at grade parking in the shade beneath the building. Fresno was always square, rectangle, 90°. How could this be? Needless to say, I was hooked. I later found that the structure’s Architect is Robert Stevens.