NJIT HONOR: Princeton Architect J. Robert Hillier, FAIA, right, was awarded a Doctorate of Humane Letters, “Honoris Causa,” at the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s commencement exercises in Newark’s Prudential Center on May 16. The Board of Trustees of NJIT honored Mr. Hillier in recognition of his distinguished career as an architect and a developer. He is pictured with Dr. Joel Bloom, president of NJIT. (Photograph by GradImages)

Princeton Architect J. Robert Hillier, FAIA, was awarded a Doctorate of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa, at the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s commencement exercises in Newark’s Prudential Center on Tuesday, May 16. Rochelle R. Hendricks, New Jersey‘s first secretary of higher education, and Philip L Rinaldi, founder of Philadelphia Energy Solutions LLC, were also honored before the capacity audience of graduates and their families.

Mr. Hillier holds a BA and MFA in architecture from Princeton University and an honorary MBA from Bryant University, whose Rhode Island campus he designed in 1972. At NJIT, he served as the first board chair of the Albert Dorman Honors College, a board on which he still serves along with the University‘s Board of Overseers. He also was the architect of four buildings on the NJIT campus, including the School of Architecture and Design.

Mr. Hillier founded his firm in 1966 in Princeton, eventually becoming the largest architecture firm in New Jersey and by 2006, the third largest, exclusively architecture firm in the country with offices in five major U.S. cities, soon followed by offices in Shanghai, Dubai, and London. Hillier Architecture has received over 300 state, national, and international design awards and, in 1998, Architectural Record magazine identified the firm as one of the best managed firms in the U.S.

In 2007 Hillier Architecture merged with a Scottish firm, to become the third largest exclusively architecture firm in the world. In 2011, he co-founded Studio Hillier (www.studiohillier.com) in Princeton with his architect wife, Barbara. The studio is involved in cultural, institutional, commercial, and residential building types: from micro-unit housing to large scale residential development, and from early childcare centers to high school research labs.

In 1989, Mr. Hillier was named New Jersey’s Entrepreneur of the Year by Inc. magazine. In 2001, he was the first recipient of the Leonardo daVinci Award from the Professional Services Management Association for lifetime leadership in his profession. Additionally, he has received the AIA’s Michael Graves Lifetime Achievement Medal and the NJIT President’s Medal for Lifetime Achievement. More recently he received the Urban Land Institute Legacy Award for land conservation and the development of affordable housing.

As a member of the core faculty at Princeton University’s School of Architecture, Mr. Hillier has lectured extensively in the U.S. at schools of architecture and to AIA chapters. He is a stockholder of Princeton’s weekly, Town Topics, and the publisher of Princeton Magazine.

The Board of Trustees of NJIT honored Mr. Hillier with its Doctorate of Humane Letters in recognition of his distinguished career as an architect and a developer.

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