University of Pennsylvania

DEAN

School of Design

We are pleased to announce that the University has appointed Marilyn Jordan Taylor, effective October 1, 2008.

Ms. Taylor, Partner in Charge of the Urban Design and Planning Practice at Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP and the first woman to serve as Chairman of the firm, is internationally known for her distinguished and passionate involvement in the design of large-scale urban projects and civic initiatives. Over a thirty-five-year career with Skidmore Owings & Merrill, she has led many of the firm’s largest and most complex projects around the world. She was also both the first architect and the first woman to serve as chairman (2005-07) of the Urban Land Institute, a non-profit research and educational institution, where she championed a renewed focus on cities, sustainable communities, and infrastructure investment.

An expert in using public space and infrastructure to shape urban districts and civic places, Marilyn Taylor has led Skidmore Owings & Merrill’s Urban Design & Planning practice in such projects as Columbia University's Manhattanville Master Plan, the East River Waterfront Master Plan, the reclamation of Con Ed's East River sites for mixed-use development, the new research building at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, and the new urban campus for John Jay College. She also founded and leads Skidmore Owings & Merrill’s Airports and Transportation practice, working on U.S. airport projects such as Terminal 4 at JFK, Continental Airlines at Newark, and the expansion of Washington, DC's Dulles International Airport. Her international airport projects include SkyCity at Hong Kong International Airport and the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, as well as the new Terminal 3 at Singapore's Changi Airport. Her transit work has been equally diverse, ranging from the award-winning Changi Airport Station in Singapore to the Transit-Friendly Land Use Handbook for New Jersey Transit. Her train projects include all fifteen intercity rail stations from Washington, DC to Boston.

Taylor is an Iowa native and a 1969 graduate of Radcliffe College. She attended the MIT Graduate School of Architecture (1969-70), and received her M. Arch in 1974 from the University of California, Berkeley. She joined Skidmore Owings & Merrill in 1971, in the firm's Washington office, and was elected Partner in 1985. In 1995, she received a prestigious David Rockefeller Fellowship from the Partnership for New York City.

Ms. Taylor succeeds Dean Gary Hack, who will formally complete a twelve-year term on June 30, 2008.