Alan Hamilton Rider was born 18 Feb 1931 in Cincinnati, OH, and grew up in Memphis, TN. During his teens, the Riders relocated to Hastings, MI, where Alan graduated from Hastings High School in 1948. In 1950, he began his studies in architecture at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, completing his Bachelor’s degree in 1953. Later that year, Rider started work towards a Master’s in Architecture at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, which he earned in the spring of 1954.

Upon graduation, Rider began working in the office of Eero Saarinen & Associates in Bloomfield Hills, MI and contributed to such projects as the General Motors Technical Center, Drake University, and Concordia Senior College (under the direction of Glen Paulsen). In 1956, he was awarded the Lloyd Warren Scholarship and the Paris Prize in Architecture for the design of a small college, also supervised by Paulsen. For the next two years, Rider travelled throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, and Japan. His time in Europe was punctuated by post-graduate study at the École Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris and a residency at the American Academy in Rome on a Fullbright grant.

Following his time abroad, Rider returned to Bloomfield Hills and began working in the office of Minoru Yamasaki & Associates. His designs during this period mainly consist of multiple-family dwellings and university housing. In 1960, Rider and sculptor Glen Michaels entered the Seattle Civic Center Fountain design competition, for which they were awarded second prize. It was also during this time that Rider married fiber artist and scholar, Jane Aistrope.

In the early 1960s, Rider started working with John Carl Warnecke & Associates, marking the second phase of his professional career. From about 1961-1969, Rider assisted with projects in and around Washington, D.C., most notably Lafayette Square, the U.S. Naval Academy, and John F. Kennedy’s gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery.

In 1969, Rider joined the engineering design firm of Daniel, Mann, Johnson and Mendenhall (DMJM) and later became chief designer. While with DMJM, Rider was enlisted to design the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, IL and the Air Force One Maintenance and Support Complex at Andrews Air Force Base in MD, the latter of which earned him a Merit Award from the United States Airforce. Rider continued working in the Washington area until his retirement in the mid-1990s.

Alan Rider passed away on 25 May 2010 in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.