James von Klemperer is an architect practicing in New York. He serves as President and Design Principal of Kohn Pedersen Fox, a global practice of 700, with offices in NY, London, Berlin, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Singapore. In each of these cities, KPF has excelled in designing and delivering clusters of large mixed use buildings that help to define central business culture.
Such projects include Hudson Yards NY, Boston Seaport, Roppongi Hills Tokyo, Marina Bay Financial Center Singapore, and Jingan Kerry Center in Shanghai, which was given the Global Excellence Award in 2015 by the ULI. In each case, KPF functioned as master planner, collaborating with private clients and public groups to arrive at the programming of complementary uses. His design for One Vanderbilt tower anchors the transit connected district of recently rejuvenated East Midtown Manhattan.
Mr von Klemperer sits as President on the Boards of the Urban Design Forum and the Skyscraper Museum in New York. He holds degrees from Harvard and Princeton, was Fiske Fellow at Trinity College Cambridge, and has taught for two years as Saarinen visiting Professor at Yale. He continues to draw, and design projects in detail, as he oversees the larger practice.