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Yvonne Szeto FAIA, LEED AP

Yvonne Szeto joined the firm in 1977 and became a partner in 1999. Over four decades of service, she has played a central role in advancing the firm’s tradition of well-crafted public works, gaining national recognition as a designer of academic and cultural institutions while extending the firm’s global reach with major corporate projects in Asia and Australia. Her extensive and diverse portfolio of built work illustrates her commitment to creating buildings that engender meaning and identity.

Ms. Szeto has served as lead designer of numerous civic, institutional, cultural, academic, and corporate headquarters projects, including the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, OECD Headquarters in Paris, NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, and Charles Darwin Centre, the Paspaley Pearls headquarters in Darwin, Australia. Her Minmetals Financial Center is currently under way in Shenzhen, China.

Ms. Szeto’s Spencer Museum of Art project, recently opened at the University of Kansas, reinvents the museum’s galleries, study center, and public spaces to further its mission as a teaching facility and community resource. Her most recently completed headquarters project—the award-winning Bank of China at 7 Bryant Park in New York—has been celebrated for engaging the public realm even as it fulfills its exacting corporate program. And her latest academic buildings—CUNY BMCC’s Fiterman Hall and Fordham University’s School of Law & McKeon Residence Hall—have advanced thinking about the vertical academic campus: both projects received the Excelsior Award for Public Architecture from the AIA New York State chapter.

Education

Harvard Graduate School of Design
MArch 1979

University of Minnesota
BArch 1977

Professional Experience

Pei Cobb Freed & Partners
Partner 1999–
Professional staff 1977–99