Peter Hall

Professor Sir Peter Hall (19 March 1932 – 30 July 2014) received his Master's (1957) and Ph.D. (1959) degrees in Geography from the University of Cambridge and has taught at the London School of Economics; at the University of Reading (1968‑88), where he was Dean of the Faculty of Urban and Regional Studies; and at the University of California at Berkeley (1980‑92), where he was Professor Emeritus of City and Regional Planning until his death after a short illness at the age of 82.

He wrote or edited nearly 40 books on urban and regional planning and related topics. He received the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society for distinction in research, and was an Honorary Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He was a Fellow of the British Academy and a member of the Academia Europea. He held fourteen honorary doctorates from universities in the UK, Sweden and Canada.

He was knighted in 1998 for services to the Town and Country Planning Association, and in 2003 was named by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as a “Pioneer in the Life of the Nation” at a reception in Buckingham Palace. In 2003 he received the Gold Medal of the Royal Town Planning Institute, the first to be awarded for twenty years. In 2005 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Deputy Prime Minister for his contributions to urban regeneration and planning. He received the 2005 Balzan Prize for work on the Social and Cultural History of Cities since the Beginning of the 16th Century. In 2008 he received the Sir Patrick Abercrombie Prize of the International Union of Architects.