Jane Thompson

Jane (Fiske) Thompson, AICP, Hon. AIA, principal of Thompson Design Group, is an urbanist designer and planner, who over forty years has impacted cities in North America and around the world, planning successful well-loved places that contribute to the vitality and identity of the cities in which they are located.

Ms. Thompson’s career in the design field has embraced both writing about it and working at it professionally.

Educated in the fine and applied arts at Vassar College with graduate work at Bennington College and NYU Institute of Fine Arts, her career has been devoted to the interaction of many facets of applied design. She spent early years in the Museum of Modern Art, becoming acting Assistant Curator in the Department of Architecture. This was followed by positions as Architecture Editor of Interiors Magazine, the Founding Editor of Industrial Design (later I.D. International Design.)

In the 1960’s, sponsored by Edgar Kaufmann Jr. she worked with Walter Gropius on an exploration of the creative educational methods of the original Bauhaus; she became a partner in Ben Thompson’s pioneering retail venture, Design Research, during its 60s expansion from Cambridge to New York to California ( She tells that story in a forthcoming book, “Design Research: The Store that Brought Modern Living to American Homes”, to be published by Chronicle Books, Sept. 2010.)

Jane’s design partnership with AIA Gold Medalist Ben Thompson began with the founding of Benjamin Thompson & Associates, Architects and Planners (BTA) in 1966. One self-sponsored project in the new office was a pro-bono proposal to revitalize Boston’s abandoned Quincy_Market site, which ultimately absorbed 12 years for completion of the instantly successful Faneuil Hall Marketplace, in which the Thompsons were also leading restaurateurs for two decades. The office practice in Cambridge (with Jane as Partner for Planning and Urban Design) blossomed with creative restoration projects, mixed use markets and urban waterfront developments around the world, In additional to innovative waterfront restorations in New York, Baltimore and Miami with The Rouse Company, BTA had commissions for waterfront revitalization in London, Cardiff, Dublin, Amsterdam, Yokohama and Tokyo. In the imaginative restoration of Washington’s Union Station (2004 – 2008), BTA was responsible for replanning and redesign of the multi-modal terminal facility and the Thompsons were co-developers / owners in Union Station Venture. Ben Thompson retired in 1994, and died in 2002.

Since 1994, as Principal of her own firm, Thompson Design Group (TDG), Jane creates successful places by addressing social interaction, commercial exchange, and economic vitality in all the firm’s planning and design work. With an emphasis on preservation and imaginative reuse of obsolete places, her TDG projects have included Navy Pier in Chicago, Grand Central District and Times Square Center in New York City. Master plan for Governor’s Island NYC and Cleveland’s North Coast Harbor.

Since 1994 Thompson Design Group has branched into large scale redevelopment planning; the firm’s Master Planning and Development Guidelines for the [of Long Branch NJ], leading the city’s redevelopment for over a decade, have received top awards from the Monmouth County Planning Department and New Jersey State Department of Planning. A TDG Master Plan for Houston’s 10-mile-long Buffalo Bayou district has won acclaim as a comprehensive urban planning model.

Jane was active on the IDCA (International Design Conference in Aspen) from 1971-2002, as a Board member, program chairman, and speaker. In 2000, she was awarded Institute Honors by the American Institute of Architects, and received the Personal Recognition Award of the Industrial Design Society of America for a lifetime contribution to the field of design.

For their lifelong support of Finnish Design and way of life, the President of Finland in 2000 named Ben and Jane Thompson each individually as Knight First Class, Order of the Lion of Finland.