Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is an American architectural, urban planning and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings in Chicago, Illinois. In 1939, they were joined by engineer John Merrill. The firm opened its second office, in New York City, in 1937 and has since expanded internationally, with offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., London, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seattle, and Dubai.
Gordon Bunshaft,, was an American architect, a leading proponent of modern design in the mid-twentieth century. A partner in Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Bunshaft joined the firm in 1937 and remained with it for more than 40 years. His notable buildings include Lever House in New York, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the National Commercial Bank in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 140 Broadway, and Manufacturers Hanover Trust Branch Bank in New York.
Bruce John Graham was a Peruvian-American architect. Graham built buildings all over the world and was deeply involved with evolving the Burnham Plan of Chicago. Among his most notable buildings are the Inland Steel Building, the Willis Tower, and the John Hancock Center. He was also responsible for planning the Broadgate and Canary Wharf developments in London.
Walter A. Netsch was an American architect based in Chicago. He was most closely associated with the brutalist style of architecture as well as with the firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. His signature aesthetic is known as Field Theory and is based on rotating squares into complex shapes. He may be best known as the lead designer for the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado and its famous Cadet Chapel. The Cadet Area at the Academy was named a National Historic Landmark in 2004. He was a fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
Roger Duffy is an American architect, known for rigorous and unconventional approach to design. Now retired, he worked as a partner at the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. He was a design partner in the New York office from 1995 until 2018, and is a member of the American Institute of Architects and the League Circle of the Architectural League of New York.
David Magie Childs is an American architect and chairman emeritus of the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. He is the architect of the new One World Trade Center in New York City.
Adrian D. Smith is an American architect. He designed the world's tallest structure, Burj Khalifa, as well as the building projected to surpass it, the Jeddah Tower. Among his other projects, he was the senior architect for the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago, the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai, and Zifeng Tower in Nanjing.
Cayan Tower, known as Infinity Tower before it was inaugurated, is a 306-metre-tall (1,004 ft), 75-story skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates by Cayan Real Estate Investment and Development. The tower is designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill SOM architectural group. Upon its opening on 10 June 2013, the tower became the world's tallest high-rise building with a twist of 90 degrees. This record has since been surpassed by the Shanghai Tower, which opened in February 2015.
The Inland Steel Building is a skyscraper located at 30 W. Monroe Street in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the city's defining commercial high-rises of the post-World War II era of modern architecture. Its principal designers were Bruce Graham and Walter Netsch of the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill architecture firm. The building is managed and leased by MB Real Estate. The Inland Steel Building was designated a Chicago Landmark in 1998.
Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS+GG), an architecture firm and design firm based in Chicago, is engaged in the design and development of energy-efficient and sustainable architecture. AS+GG designs buildings, cities, masterplans and components of these, for an international clientele, with projects located throughout the world. The primary uses of these designs are civic, commercial, cultural, hospitality, residential and mixed-use. AS+GG also specializes in supertall skyscrapers, such as the Jeddah Tower, which will overtake the Burj Khalifa as the world's tallest building when completed.
Craig W. Hartman, FAIA, is an architect and Design Partner in Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's San Francisco, California, office. His most prominent work includes the Cathedral of Christ the Light for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland. It is the first cathedral in the world built entirely in the 21st century. He also completed the International Terminal at the San Francisco International Airport, Harvard University's Northwest Science Building, and the new US Embassy in Beijing.
Nathaniel Alexander Owings was an American architect, a founding partner of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which became one of the largest architectural firms in the United States and the world. Owings viewed skyscrapers as his firm's specialty. His reputation rested on his ability to be what he called "the catalyst," the person in his firm who ironed out differences among clients, contractors and planning commissions.
William Frazier Baker is an American structural engineer known for engineering the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building/man-made structure. He is currently a structural engineering partner in the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP (SOM).
T. J. Gottesdiener is an architect and managing partner of the New York office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). A graduate of Cooper Union’s Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, Gottesdiener joined SOM in 1980 and was made Partner in 1994. He lives with his wife in New York City; they have one son.
George J. Efstathiou, FAIA, RIBA is an American architect of Greek descent. George joined Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, LLP (SOM) in 1974, where he served as Managing Partner and later Consulting Partner in the Chicago office until 2016. He is currently leading the consulting practice of Efstathiou Consulting LLC which serves clients in the architecture, planning, interiors design as well as others in the real estate and corporate communities.
John Ogden Merrill was an American architect and structural engineer. He was chiefly responsible for the design and construction of the United States Air Force Academy campus and for the development of Oak Ridge, Tennessee where the atomic bomb was developed. He was a partner of the international architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
Philip Enquist, FAIA is a partner in the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in charge of Urban Design & Planning. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
Natalie Griffin de Blois was an American architect. Entering the field in 1944, she became one of the earliest prominent woman in the male-dominated profession. She was a partner for many years in the firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Her notable works include the Pepsi Cola Headquarters, Lever House, and the Union Carbide Building in New York City, the Equitable Building in Chicago, the low-rise portions of the Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, and the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company Headquarters in Bloomfield, Connecticut. Several of de Blois' buildings are among the tallest woman-designed buildings in the world. She later taught architecture at the University of Texas in the 1980s and 1990s.
Marilyn Jordan Taylor an American architect, who has been a partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill since the early 1980s and served as its first female chairman. She specializes in urban architectural projects and designed the master plan for the Manhattanville expansion, the Consolidated Edison East River Greenway as well as airports from the John F. Kennedy International Airport terminal 4 expansion to the SkyCity at the Hong Kong International Airport. Between 2008 and 2016, she served as the Dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Design.
Gary Paul Haney FRIBA, FAIA is an American architect, a design partner in the firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Haney's approach draws heavily on environmental modeling techniques, deep materials research, and advanced building information modeling (BIM) technologies. Buildings on which he was lead designer include the supertall Al Hamra Tower in Kuwait City and civic buildings in the United States including two Public Safety Answering Centers in New York City and the United States Census Bureau headquarters and the redesign of the National Museum of American History, both in Washington, D.C.
