The World by Design

The World by Design: The Story of a Global Architecture Firm
A. Eugene Kohn with Clifford Pearson
Rosetta Books, October 2019



Hardcover | 7 x 10 inches | 328 pages | English | ISBN: 978-1948122498 | $34.99

Publisher's Description:

Founded on July 4, 1976, Kohn Pedersen Fox quickly became a darling of the architectural press with groundbreaking buildings such as the headquarters for the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, 333 Wacker Drive in Chicago, the Procter & Gamble headquarters in Cincinnati, and the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, DC.

By the early 1990s, when most architecture firms in the U.S. were struggling to survive a major recession, KPF was busy with significant buildings in London, Germany, Canada, Japan, Korea, and Indonesia—pioneering a model of global practice that has influenced architecture, design, and creative-services firms ever since. Like any other business, though, KPF has stumbled along the way and wrestled with crises. But through it all, it has remained innovative in a field that changes all the time and often favors the newest star on the horizon.

Now in its fifth decade, the firm has shaped skylines and cities around the world with iconic buildings such as the World Financial Center in Shanghai, Roppongi Hills in Tokyo, the International Commerce Centre in Hong Kong, the DZ Bank Tower in Frankfurt, the Goldman Sachs building in London, and Hudson Yards in New York.

Forthright and engaging, Kohn examines both award-winning achievements and missteps in his 50-year career in architecture. In the process, he shows how his firm, KPF, has helped change the buildings and cities where we live, work, learn, and play.

dDAB Commentary:

Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) are the most famous three-letter acronyms in the world of architecture. One thing they have in common, besides being large, corporate firms based in New York City, is Stephen Ross, the head of Related Companies. SOM designed Time Warner Center -- the mixed-use complex with "twin" towers on Columbus Circle -- for Related in 2004. Fifteen years later, the first phase of Related's Hudson Yards opened 1.5 miles away on Manhattan's Far West Side. Planned by KPF and featuring three (of five) towers designed by the firm, the massive, ongoing project could have gone just as easily to SOM. After all, how many firms are capable of handing a project that involves large-scale planning, the design of commercial skyscrapers, and the logistics of building over active rail yards?

So how did KPF get the job? As revealed in The World by Design by A. Eugene Kohn, a founder of KPF, getting that job -- like any -- was a mix of previous work, fortuitous timing, and relationships. The story of Hudson Yards comes in the tenth of the book's thirteen chapters. Kohn first recounts the firm's design of the Jets stadium that would have been built over the rail yards as part of the city's eventually failed bid for the 2012 Olympics, a commission that KPF gained because of its earlier work in building "vertical urbanism" over transit infrastructure in Japan but also (maybe) because Kohn's daughter dressed up her 18-month twins in Jets gear for a meeting with the owner of the Jets. Whatever the case, KPF's experience in learning to build over Hudson Yards, albeit unsuccessfully, gave them an edge over SOM -- or any other firm, for that matter -- in planning the Related development, even though the developer had a relationship with SOM from Time Warner. Around the time Related and SOM were designing Time Warner, Kohn and Ross, who had previously met just once, "had a lively conversation" at a trustee meeting of the Urban Land Institute (ULI); that conversation led to KPF designing the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. During that project Ross asked Kohn to work on their Hudson Yards bid. The rest, they say, is history. Well, not really, as there are more details in the book on that project, but the details mentioned here get across the combination of factors that have gone into KPF gaining some of its work.

The World by Design, written in-house at KPF with Clifford Pearson (formerly at Architectural Record, he is one of many journalists and critics who have decamped recently to architecture firms to lead their PR efforts), is a very accessible autobiography of Kohn and the firm he founded with William Pedersen and the late Sheldon Fox on July 4, 1976 -- yes, the same day as the country's bicentennial. At times, the language is too simple (e.g., "Steve [Stephen Ross] is a gutsy businessman," "Hudson Yards embodies the spirit and character of New York City"), but for all I know that is how Kohn speaks. Ultimately, sentences like these make it seem like Kohn is hiding as much as he is revealing -- and he is revealing a lot of his life. How is Ross gutsy? How does Hudson Yards embody New York City? These statements tell readers what to think rather than letting them form their own conclusions. But I'm guessing this is fine for the book's target audience, or at least whom I think would like it most: businesspeople and business-minded architects looking for life lessons from one of the letters behind one of the most successful architecture firms -- three-letter acronym or not -- today.

Spreads:


Author Bio:

A. Eugene Kohn is a founding partner and chairman of Kohn Pedersen Fox, one of the world’s top architecture firms. Clifford Pearson is the editorial director of Kohn Pedersen Fox.

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