Ep: 056 - A Conversation with William Pedersen of KPF

Architecture, Design & Photography

In this episode of Architecture, Design & Photography we sit down with William Pedersen, Principal and founding design partner of Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF). We discuss William's new book Gesture and Response, the early days of his career working with I. M. Pei, and his thought processes when designing the iconic Shanghai World Financial Center. It was an incredible pleasure to sit down with William for a conversation, we hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

William Pedersen is the founding design partner of Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF), which he started with A. Eugene Kohn and Sheldon Fox in 1976. Fourteen years later, they became the youngest firm to receive the National AIA Firm Award for design excellence. Bill’s personal honors include the Rome Prize in Architecture in 1965, the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize from the American Academy and the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the University of Minnesota’s Alumni Achievement Award, the Gold Medal from the national architectural fraternity, Tau Sigma, the Lynn S. Beedle Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), and the Medal of Honor from the AIA of New York. He was recently elected as a member of the National Academy of Design and was awarded the 2013 International Award by The Society of American Registered Architects (SARA).

Bill lectures internationally and serves on academic and professional juries and symposia. He is on the Board of the University of Minnesota Foundation and has been a visiting professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, Columbia University, and Harvard University. He has held the Eero Saarinen Chair at Yale University and 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.