UC Berkeley Press Release
Sir Peter Hall, UC Berkeley emeritus professor of city planning, wins 2005 Balzan Prize
BERKELEY – Sir Peter Hall, professor emeritus of city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley, is one of six winners of the 2005 Balzan Prize, recognized for his contributions to the study of the social and cultural history of cities since the start of the 16th century.
Hall, a native of Great Britain, is now a professor of planning at University College London. He has written nearly 30 books on urban and regional planning and related topics.
The prize committee of the joint Swiss/Italian International Balzan Foundation announced the six Balzan Prize winners earlier this month.
The Balzan Prize, worth $805,000, is one of the highest awards for science, culture and humanitarian achievement, ranking close to the Nobel Prize. This year, two of the four awards went to researchers in the United States.
Official awarding of the Balzan Prize will take place at a ceremony on Nov. 11 in the Swiss Parliament in Bern, Switzerland. Prize recipients donate half the prize money to research projects for young researchers in his or her field of study.
The International Balzan Foundation fosters outstanding achievements worldwide in the humanities, natural sciences and culture, as well as humanitarian endeavors for peace and brotherhood. It operates through two separate foundations, one Swiss and the other Italian.