James von Klemperer FAIA RIBA is President & Design Principal at Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, where he is responsible for leading a staff of over 700 architects in nine offices across the globe. 

 

A major focus of von Klemperer’s work has been to heighten the role that large developments play in making urban space. This commitment to urban place-making is expressed in his work around the world, in projects such as  One Vanderbilt in New York City; WINDOW La Défense; and, at a larger scale, his design for New Songdo City in Incheon, South Korea, which extends this challenge to the scope of urban planning. Each of these projects generates strong symbiotic relationships between program space and the public realm.

 

von Klemperer has lectured at Harvard, Columbia, Tsinghua, Tongji, Seoul National, and Yonsei Universities, the ESA in Paris, AMO in Lyon, and at Yale, where he has taught as Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor in 2010 and 2016. In 2018, he received the American Prize for Architecture from The Chicago Athenaeum.