UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — In the late 1960s, George H. Miller was contemplating his future after high school when a neighbor and family friend in Towanda, Pennsylvania, stepped in to help the young man who emigrated with his mother from Germany a decade earlier.
“I’m taking you to Penn State,” the neighbor and alumna of the University told Miller. A few days later, she drove him to State College and changed the trajectory of his life.
Almost 55 years after Miller walked into Old Main and applied to the University, the world-renowned architect is returning in the midst of an illustrious career to be recognized as one of eight Distinguished Alumni Award winners for 2024. The Distinguished Alumni Award is the highest honor that the University bestows upon an outstanding alumna or alumnus.
“The education I received at Penn State has afforded me the opportunity to become what I am today,” Miller said. “I am deeply honored and excited to be a part of an incredible group of alumni and consider it a highlight of my career.”
Miller is the chief operating officer of Meier Partners, an international architecture firm based in New York that has designed some of the world’s most notable buildings. He was president in 2010 of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), which came shortly after serving as president of AIA’s New York Chapter.
Over the course of his five-decade career, Miller has worked on significant projects in the United States, including: the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, Texas; the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio; the National Constitution Center on the Mall in Philadelphia; the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, North Carolina; and the United States Air Force Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.
His international projects include the Raffles International Center in Singapore; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Luxembourg; Soyak Kristalkule Finansbank Headquarters in Istanbul; the Charles Darwin Center in Darwin, Australia; the Palazzo Lombardia in Milan; and Taishin International Bank in Taipei.
Miller’s visions of a career in architecture started in the 1960s in Towanda, a small town in northeast Pennsylvania, where, he said, he was often drawn to the design of the Bradford County Courthouse. The recognition of the impact of architecture sparked an interest in the field, which led him to his first job with Richard Sweitzer, one of two architects in the town at the time.
That exposure to design and the art of architecture steered his education at Penn State. Along the way to earning a bachelor of science in architecture in 1973, Miller traveled with six other students on a transformative study-abroad trip to San Leucio, Italy, a utopian community planned in the mid-1700s by King Charles VII of Naples.
For three months, Miller lived in San Leucio and, as part of an interdisciplinary group of students, he studied the architecture and culture of the town. Under the watchful eye of then-Professor of Architecture Richard Plunz, he contributed to the book “Traditions in Transition,” which was recently transcribed in Italian for the book and project’s 50th anniversary.
His work on the project not only helped to mold his design philosophy, he said, but resulted in a life-long friendship with Leonardo Riviello, a resident of San Leucio.
“The time in Italy changed my life,” Miller said. “It also made me realize the importance of study abroad programs at Penn State, which I am proud to support.”
Shortly after earning his degree in 1973, Miller prepared his portfolio and ultimately landed a job in New York City with I.M. Pei, the well-known, Chinese-born American architect who designed some of the world’s most notable structures, including the glass pyramid at the Louvre in Paris, the John F. Kennedy Library and the National Gallery East Building in Washington, D.C.
Miller worked at Pei’s firm, which later became Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, until 2018, just prior to joining Meier.
“Working with I.M. was both exciting and rewarding,” Miller said. “I have been blessed to have had a wonderful career and I hope that I have had an impact on the way people live in the built environment — the places where they work, play, study and heal.”
Throughout a career that has pushed the bounds of design and changed the landscape of communities around the world, Miller has remained closely connected to Penn State. He is the chair of the Provost’s Global Advisory Council and served in the past on the Stuckeman School’s Advisory Board.
“The influence Penn State has globally is nothing short of amazing,” Miller said. “From agriculture to the medical field, performing arts, engineering, liberal arts and business, to name a few, Penn State is everywhere, and I want to contribute to that cause.”