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JAIME LERNER
Brazil
One of Brazil's best-known architects and urban planners, Jaime Lerner has an impressive track-record that overflows this brief profile. Twice governor of his home state (Paraná in Southern Brazil) and three times mayor of the State capital (Curitiba, also his hometown), he is also a former president of the International Union of Architects (UIA). In each of these positions, his pursuit of creative urban planning alternatives has always been notable.
Back in the 1970s, during his first term as mayor of Curitiba, Lerner developed the subway on wheels concept, now known internationally as the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system currently operating in Rio de Janeiro, Bogotá, Seoul, Los Angeles and Istanbul, among other cities. Last year, the BRT carried 2.6 million people each day in Curitiba, just short of the London Underground, which handles around three million passengers a day.
Educated in government schools, in 1964 he earned a degree in Architecture and Urban Planner from the Architecture School, Paraná Federal University. Since then, he has advised and designed urban plans for cities all over the world (USA, Mexico, Panama, Angola, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, China, Cuba and South Korea) and in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Porto Alegre, Florianópolis, Recife, Salvador, Aracaju, Natal, Goiânia, Campo Grande, Niterói, Joinville, Cuiabá, São Caetano do Sul and Campinas), in addition to serving as a consultant to the United Nations for Urban Affairs.
Honoured by many awards, his tributes include the United Nations Highest Environmental Prize (1990); the UNICEF Children and Peace Award (1996); the Sir Robert Mathew Prize for the Improvement of Quality of Human Settlements, UIA (2002); the Volvo Environment Prize (2004); and the Silver Medal at the University of Wisconsin's International City Design Competition, USA (1989). In 2010, Time magazine ranked Jaime Lerner among the worlds 25 most influential thinkers.
In the field of Education, he taught at the Architecture and Urban Planning School, Paraná Federal University. A guest lecturer and professor at Berkeley, Cincinnati and Columbia Universities (USA) and Osaka University (Japan), he has also conducted seminars in many countries, including China, Colombia, Japan, Puerto Rico, Spain, the UK and the USA.