IN RECOGNITION OF PETER VAN DIJK ﷯ This year, for our 56th annual awards program, we are pleased to present a special tribute to Peter van Dijk, who received his Cleveland Arts Prize in 1969, still early in his emerging career as one of the preeminent architects in Cleveland history. “Back then, the prize was something new and unusual,” Peter recalls. “So it was very exciting to receive, because it was a nice honor and great recognition of an individual artist’s creativity, and I really appreciated it.” He has been extremely supportive of the Cleveland Arts Prize ever since, even hosting the artists’ reception at his home in 2015. Born in 1929, the eldest son of a Shell Corporation engineer, Peter spent most of his childhood far from the Netherlands—partly because of his father’s career, partly because of his parents’ determination to keep him and his two younger brothers away from World War II. He was born in Indonesia, but grew up in relative isolation in a colony in Venezuela. He came to America as a teenager, and became a US citizen in 1953. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Oregon and served in the US Army for two years before getting his Masters in Architecture from MIT. He spent a year in Rome on a Fulbright Scholarship. Before moving to Cleveland, he worked as a designer with the acclaimed architect Eero Saarinen for four years. Peter’s innovative designs continue to enhance the aesthetics, environment and quality of life of Northeast Ohio and other cities. Some of his most prominent projects include the A. J. Celebreeze Federal Building, Blossom Music Center, Cain Park Amphitheater, the Cleveland State Music Building, and the Temple Hoyne Buell Theater in Denver. Additionally, Peter designed the corporate headquarters for Parker Hannifin, B. F. Goodrich, Lubrizol, IMG and Invacare. His designs for prominent medical facilities include buildings at the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals, as well as for hospitals in Akron, Youngstown and Cincinnati. He also established a reputation for exceptional designs for historical preservation. His firm’s best known preservation projects include reviving the theaters at Playhouse Square and designing the new Cleveland Play House theaters when they moved into the complex, along with the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank, The Society (now Key) Bank, Huntington Bank, MK Ferguson Plaza, and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Public Square. Peter is a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects and recipient of the Gold Medal of the Ohio AIA chapter, its highest honor.

Cleveland Arts Prize

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