Award Recipients
Award Recipients
The annual Edmund N. Bacon Memorial Award honors one outstanding national or international figure who, like Bacon, has advocated for excellence in urban development, planning, thought, and design through conviction of vision, effective communication, and a commitment to improving their community.

Theaster Gates is an American Social Practice installation artist, community developer, and Founder of the Rebuild Foundation, a nonprofit focused on cultural-driven redevelopment and affordable space initiatives in under-resourced communities. He is committed to the revitalization of poor neighborhoods through combining urban planning and art practices.

Gehl has spent his career advocating for the design of active, healthy, inclusive places and may be best known for helping to turn his hometown of Copenhagen into one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world. Gehl is founding partner of Gehl Architects and has published several books on designing cities.

Judith Rodin, president of The Rockefeller Foundation, received the 2015 Edmund N. Bacon Award for her work highlighting the issue of and helping to develop plans that address resiliency in cities around the world in the face of natural and man-made disasters.
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As Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, and co-founder of Building America's Future, Rendell has worked tirelessly to revitalize old infrastructure and to advocate for investment in our future needs.
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From his activist beginnings helping to revitalize the LoDo section of Denver to the administration of his Governorship of Colorado, Hickenlooper has focused his career on revitalizing neighborhoods and cities.
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As commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation, Sadik-Khan spearheaded the transformation of Times Square from a complicated knot of roadways into one of the most popular public plazas in the city using tactical urbanism.
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As an award-winning author and co-founder of the acclaimed Venturi Scott Brown Associates, Scott Brown has become one of the most well-known advocates for urban planning and thoughtful ideas about public spaces.
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Serving as both Mayor of Charlottesville and Director of Design for the National Endowment for the Arts, Cox has tirelessly worked to promote and support innovative ideas to make cities more livable places.
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Having served as Mayor of Milwakee and co-founder of the Congress for New Urbanism, Norquist's focus on applying historical architectural and planning principals to make urban places more enjoyable defines his illustrious career.
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As Architecture Critic for the New Yorker Magazine, Goldberger's celebrated Sky Line column educated the public about architecture and its impact on us all. His advocacy work on behalf of good design continues through freelance journalism with Vanity Fair and other publications.
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