John P. Eberhard (1927-2020)

John P. Eberhard may not be a household name, but the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA), of which he was founding president, is widely known to architects, especially those interested in the connection between the environment and the activity of the human brain. The ANFA was founded in 2003 with the mission "to promote and advance knowledge that links neuroscience research to a growing understanding of human responses to the built environment." The institution was formed by the San Diego Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and involved the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the University of California at San Diego (UCSD). It is based in San Diego.

The year that Eberhard was named ANFA president he was also given a $100,000 Latrobe Prize from the AIA for two years of research on neuroscience. That research led to, among other things, two books authored by Eberhard on architecture and neuroscience: Architecture and the Brain: A New Knowledge Base from Neuroscience (2007) and Brain Landscape: The Coexistence of Neuroscience and Architecture (2008). Eberhard retired in 2008, moving to a retirement community in Maryland with his wife, who died in April this year from a brain hemorrhage. In 2018 the ANFA created a fellowship that bears his name: the John Paul Eberhard Fellowship, which is currently accepting applications for its 2020 iteration.

Visit the ANFA website to read more about the long life of John P. Eberhard.