William Pedersen Won CTBUH Lifetime Achievement Award

Press Release:
Hong Kong – July 12, 2010 – International architecture firm, Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), is proud to announce that founding partner, William Pedersen, has been selected as the 2010 recipient of the Lynn S. Beedle Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH). Mr. Pedersen will be honored at the 9th Annual Awards Dinner & Ceremony for his lifetime of dedication to the advancement of tall buildings with his work including the design of many influential and iconic skyscrapers across the globe.


The CTBUH 9th Annual Awards Dinner & Ceremony will take place on Thursday October 21st at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Mies van der Rohe’s iconic Crown Hall in Chicago. Mr. Pedersen will be honored alongside Ysrael A. Seinuk, who is to receive the Fazlur Khan Lifetime Achievement Medal.

“The tall building has been the dominant component of the modern city for almost 100 years,” said Mr. Pedersen. “By its nature, it tends to be insular and autonomous. My efforts during the past 35 years have been focused upon making it a more social participant within the city.”

Mr. Pedersen’s body of work includes many notable tall buildings such as: 333 Wacker Drive in Chicago, Illinois; DG Bank Headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany; 1250 Boulevard Rene-Levesque in Montreal, Canada; First Hawaiian Bank in Honolulu, Hawaii; Tour CBX in Paris, France; Samsung Seocho and Posteel Tower, both in Seoul, South Korea; the International Commerce Centre in Hong Kong; and the Shanghai World Financial Center, which was named ‘Best Tall Building Overall’ by the CTBUH in 2008.

A. Eugene Kohn, Chairman of KPF and fellow founding partner, also noted the significance of Mr. Pedersen’s commitment to enabling the successful integration of tall buildings into the surrounding community: “After Bill and I founded the firm with Shelly Fox in 1976, we sought to find a way for the tall buildings to relate to the urban street wall, and to be a participant in the urban context. Our firm remains committed to that concept and recognizes the important role of tall buildings. This prestigious award is one Bill truly deserves and acknowledges his success in making the tall building a more meaningful participant.”

KPF President Paul Katz added, “The award recognizes that Bill’s ideas and many wonderful buildings have consistently contributed to the evolution of the most important and exciting building type of our time. Looking forward, the buildings that Bill is currently designing are even more beautiful, innovative, and important in addressing the changing needs of cities and societies globally.”

As Founding Design Partner of KPF, Mr. Pedersen has received the AIA National Honor Award six times in recognition of his work. He received the Gold Medal for lifetime achievement in architecture from Tau Sigma Delta, the National Honor Society for Architecture and the Allied Arts. Additional honors include the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture for Contributions in Architecture as an Art (1985), awarded by the American Academy and the Institute of Arts and Letters; and the 1990 University of Minnesota Alumni Achievement Award.

Mr. Pedersen also lectures internationally and serves on academic and professional juries and symposia. He has been a visiting professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, Columbia University, and Harvard University, and he has held the Eero Saarinen Chair at Yale University. He has also been the Otis Lecturer in Japan. In 1989, he was honored as the Herbert S. Greenward Distinguished Professor in Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has degrees in architecture from the University of Minnesota and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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