Philadelphia’s Center for Architecture and Design will honor Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake with the 2021 Louis I. Khan Award. 

The duo and founders of eponymous KieranTimberlake will join David Adjaye and Jeanne Gang as recent winners of the annual award now in its 35th year.

The award is meant to recognize the influence of its namesake, a Philadelphia native and icon of modernism, that Timberlake referred to as an “architect’s architect.”

“We are humbled and grateful for this award,” the architect said in a statement. “As for Steve and me, and the firm at-large, it is recognition of the diligence, effort, and hard work that we give to each and every commission and an acknowledgment to our clients that they made the right choice.”

KieranTimberlake’s practice was first established in the city in 1984 and has since gone on to establish itself as an international leader in the industry, with multiple AIA awards and a 2010 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Architecture. 

Recent projects in London and St. Louis have garnered recognition for the Weitzman School graduates, who have successfully integrated the firm's long-held embrace of sustainability, prefabrication, and high-tech innovation in their “war against climate change.” 

A ceremony for this year’s winners will be held at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archeology on November 2nd. The event is open to the public; tickets to the lecture and cocktail reception can be found here.