Prof. Nelson Chen has served at CUHK since 1992 in several teaching and advisory positions: visiting lecturer and design critic; adjunct professor; honorary professor and external examiner; and most recently as Director of the School of Architecture (2015-19). Currently, he holds CUHK appointments as University Honorary Architect and member of the Board of Overseers at Morningside College.
Professor Chen has practiced architecture for over 40 years, originally in the US and, since 1987, as Principal Architect of Nelson Chen Architects Ltd in Hong Kong. Born in New York, he was educated at Harvard, where he received the BA degree summa cum laude and MArch degree with the AIA School Medal as first-ranked architectural graduate. Other academic prizes include Phi Beta Kappa, Wheelwright Travelling Fellowship and Knox Fellowship for postgraduate study at Cambridge, among others.
Professional work has been recognized by over 40 major design awards including AIA honor and merit awards, HKIA design awards including the HKIA President’s Prize, IFRAA Religious Architecture Award, UNESCO Heritage Conservation Award, and Artist of the Year Award in Architecture from Hong Kong Artists Guild. Under his design leadership, Nelson Chen Architects Ltd received the Architecture Firm Award from both the AIA International Region and AIA Hong Kong in recognition of “overall design achievement that exemplifies the highest standards of the architectural profession.”
His design work was published in the monograph Nelson Chen Architects – Context and Community (Watermark Publications, UK). Prof. Chen is a Fellow of the AIA, RIBA and HKIA, as well as founding president of the AIA Hong Kong Chapter in 1997 and recipient of its Distinguished Service Award.
