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HLW is an international architecture and design consultancy, with headquarters in New York City, with offices in Los Angeles, London and Shanghai.

History
1885 - Architect Cyrus L.W. Eidlitz, son of a founder of the American Institute of Architects, opened his office with a commission to design the first telephone building in Manhattan, the Metropolitan Telephone Building on Cortlandt Street. The commission marked the firm’s long association with what was to become the New York Telephone Company and, later, Verizon.

In 1900, Eidlitz formed a partnership with structural engineer Andrew C. McKenzie to pioneer a new building design and established the firm Eidlitz & McKenzie. In 1905, the firm designed one of New York’s first and most famous skyscrapers, The New York Times Building on the site then renamed Times Square in its honor. The task was complicated by the simultaneous construction of a subway at the building’s foundation.

In 1910, Eidlitz withdrew from the firm and with the addition of Stephen Voorhees and Paul Gmelin the firm reorganized as McKenzie, Voorhees & Gmelin. This became a tradition of the firm: partners choosing their successors from within the firm in order to establish a smooth transfer of ownership. Over the next 15 years, the firm added notable designs for clients in the telephone, banking and R&D industries, including labs for Western Electric (1922), the South Brooklyn Savings Bank (1924) and the Brooklyn Municipal Building (1924).

For the next decade, the design and construction of a series of skyscrapers began at the firm with the hiring of Ralph Walker. Notable structures such as the Barclay-Vesey Building, the Western Union Building (at 60 Hudson Street in Manhattan and is today a central technical facility for over 100 telecom companies); Salvation Army Headquarters (completed in 1930 and remaining as the Salvation Army’s headquarters today) and, in 1931, the 50-story Irving Trust Headquarters Building at One Wall Street in Lower Manhattan were all completed. Upon McKenzie’s death, Walker became a partner, and the firm name was changed to Voorhees, Gmelin and Walker.

After the Great Depression, the firm received ten commissions for the New York World’s Fair and, in 1940, Max H. Foley and Perry Coke Smith became partners, and Voorhees, Walker, Foley & Smith was formed. The firm's petroleum industries pavilion was critically well-received.

With the world at war, the firm’s contribution to the war effort began with a commission to design Army Air Corps bases in Trinidad. Laboratories geared to defense follow, along with structures at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and facilities necessary for the transport of heavy military equipment.

In 1941, the first phase of the new Bell Telephone Laboratories was completed on 250 acres at Murray Hill, New Jersey. The project introduced the flexible-modular approach to laboratory design, demonstrating an efficient use of space and accommodating 6,000 scientists, engineers, and administrators dedicated to the study of sound and sound transmission. Bell Labs foreshadowed the subsequent postwar movement of research labs from converted manufacturing plants to separate facilities in suburban locations.

During this period, Benjamin Lane Smith, one of the firm’s chief designers, became a partner; however the firm’s name remained Voorhees, Walker, Foley & Smith.

Projects of note during this period included Argonne National Laboratory (the research center for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in Lemont, Illinois) and the Savannah River Plant in Aiken, South Carolina which was built on a site larger than the entire island of Manhattan. In 1955, Voorhees, Walker, Smith & Smith was formed.

In 1959, Charles Haines, a principal contributor to the firm's design work for research facilities, became a partner. Voorhees, Walker, Smith, Smith & Haines was formed and, in 1964, after Robert Lundberg and Frank J. Waehler became partners, a newly-christened Smith, Smith Lundberg & Waehler was formed.

With the celebration of its seventy-fifth anniversary in the early 1960s the firm began to expand its operations internationally. At the same time, the office continued to design extensive testing and research facilities for both private and government clients within the United States. One notable example of this work was the Goddard Space Flight Center, a multi-building project for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was completed in 1965 to implement President John F. Kennedy’s commitment to put a man on the moon. With the retirements of Benjamin Lane Smith in 1966 and Perry Coke Smith in 1968, the name of the firm became Haines, Lundberg Waehler.

International projects allowed the firm to bring their designs outside the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including the Centro Sperimentale Metallurgico, a research center for the development of steel projects was completed on a 125-acre site outside Rome and the International Institute Of Tropical Agriculture, a research and housing facility on a 3,000-acre site in Ibadan, Nigeria. In order to accommodate growth in its overseas practice, the firm created a new division of operations, HLW International, with its first offices in Beirut and then in Athens with projects extending to Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.

In 1982 the first Midtown Manhattan office of the U.S. Trust Company was restored by the firm to the original 1896 design by McKim Mead and White, while accommodating the requirements of a 1980s office. HLW won awards from the New York Landmark Conservancy, the Building Owners and Managers Association, and the Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society in America. In 1983, significant modifications were made for the existing Chemical Bank World Headquarters at 277 Park Avenue in Manhattan. This design included the enclosure of an existing plaza to create Chemcourt, which provided the city with a park-like enclosed space.

Exactly 100 years after the firm’s beginning with a commission to design the first telephone building in New York, a new project for NYNEX Corporation was initiated, as was a training center for The Travelers Insurance Companies in Hartford, Connecticut.

In the decades since HLW’s 100th anniversary, the firm has extended to broadcast, film and television industries. For Fox Studios in Los Angeles, HLW created a 50-acre campus that housed the first fully-digital network broadcast center. The project incorporated several buildings, creative site/landscape design and over 1 million square feet of historical renovations. And when Avon Products hired the firm to design a new global research and design center, HLW relocated the company's from its old space into its new 227,500 square foot facility in New York. Additional examples of the company's recent work for the United Nations Secretariat and North Lawn Conference Building and Google’s East Coast Headquarters.

Selected projects

 * 1885		Alexander Graham Bellcommissions first Manhattan telephone building
 * 1900-1909	The New York Times Tower
 * 1910-1919	New York Telephone Building
 * 1920-1929	Irving Trust Company office tower, designed by Ralph Walker
 * 1930-1939	Chicago World’s Fair
 * 1940-1949	Bell Telephone Research Laboratory
 * 1950-1959	School of Engineering, Columbia University
 * 1960-1969 	NASA/Goddard Space Center
 * 1970-1979	American Cyanamid Company
 * 1980-1989	Schering-Plough Corporate Headquarters
 * 1990-2000	Twentieth Century Fox
 * 2000-2001 	Bloomberg, Level (3) Communications
 * 2001 		SAP Global Marketing Headquarters, 2001 Business Week/Architectural Record Award
 * 2002 		Harborside Financial Plaza 10
 * 2003		Random House Headquarters
 * 2004		The McGraw-Hill Companies, London Headquarters
 * 2005 		Avon Products, Inc.
 * 2006		Google, East Coast Headquarters
 * 2007		United Nations Federal Credit Union
 * 2008 		Dechert LLP
 * 2009 		Hilton Hotels Grand Vacations Club, WPVI

Awards
2009
 * Dechert LLP IIDA, New York Chapter Winner, Commercial Building over 50,000 sf
 * The Medicines Company IIDA, New York Chapter Honorable Mention, Commercial Building over 50,000 sf
 * Warner Bros. Studios Stage 23, Los Angeles Business Council Award of Design Excellence Sustainability Award

2008
 * BMW Rallye Motors SEGD Design Award, Environmental Graphics Award

2007
 * NeoPets IIDA Calibre Awards  Southern California Chapter Office under 20,000 sf

2006
 * Stack Restaurant Hospitality Design Magazine, Finalist, Fine Dining, AIA, Los Angeles Chapter Finalist, Restaurant Design Winner, People’s Choice Award

2005
 * US Brooklyn Federal Courthouse, Roger H. Corbetta Award, The Concrete Industry Board Annual Award Superior Work in Quality Concrete Building


 * HBO, IIDA, International Interior Design Association, New York Chapter 2005 Commercial Building over 50,000 sf

2004
 * 150 Fifth Avenue, Lobby Renovation BOMA Pinnacle Award Best Renovated Building in NY


 * Warner Music Group, IIDA, Southern California Chapter 2004 Calibre Team Award Los Angeles Business Council Architectural Awards Award of Excellence


 * Millennium High School, CEFPI Northeast Region Award, Design Share Reviewer Recognition Award

2003
 * Equinox Fitness Club, IIDA Calibre Awards, Southern California Chapter Team Award
 * Siegel + Gale, IIDA Calibre Awards, Southern California Chapter Team Award
 * Mack-Cali Realty Corporation, Harborside Financial Center Plaza 10, New Jersey Business and Industry Association, New Good Neighbor Award
 * SJP Properties, Waterfront Corporate Center, New Jersey Business and Industry Association, New Good Neighbor Award, New Jersey Business and Industry Association The Golden Trowel Award
 * Time Warner, Columbus Circle, The Best of 2003 Annual Award, New York Construction

2002
 * Random House World Headquarters/The Park Imperial, New York Construction News Award of Merit: Mixed Use Project
 * HLW International Ltd., HLW International London Office, FX International Interior Design Awards: Finalist
 * Kuwait Chamber of Commerce Headquarters, American Concrete Institute, Kuwait Chapter Award of Excellence for best building in concrete

2001 2000
 * SAP Global Marketing Headquarters, Business Week/Architectural Record Award, Good Design is Good Business, Design-Build Conference, Design-Build Excellence Award
 * Schering-Plough Corporation, K-1 Corporate Building, New Jersey Business and Industry Association New Good Neighbor Award
 * Level 3 Communications Boston Gateway, The Society for Marketing Professional Services Collaboration Award
 * Hotel Casa del Mar, Southern California Chapter of the IIDA for Team Excellence Calibre Award Los Angeles Business Council, Beautification Award, Renovation, Los Angeles Business Council, Beautification Award
 * Fox Network Center, Twentieth Century Fox Studios, Commercial New Building Mid/High Rise, Los Angeles Business Council Urban Beautification Award
 * Fox Executive Building, New Buildings - Commercial Mid/High Rise Arden Realty Award Los Angeles Business Council Beautification Award
 * Fox Studios Galaxy Way Garage, New Buildings - Commercial Mid/High Rise, Los Angeles Business Council, Beautification Award
 * Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, The National Capital Planning Commission Award
 * Hotel Casa del Mar, Historic Restoration, Westside Urban Forum, The Westside Prize Honor Award
 * Food and Drug Administration, New York Regional Laboratories and Offices, Construction News Award Institutional Project of the Year
 * Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, Charles B Rangel Community Health Center, 21st Annual Interiors Magazine, Best Healthcare Facility