SOM Evolutions: Recent Work of Skidmore, Owings & Merill - Hardcover

Bussel, Abby

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 3764360720 ISBN 13: 9783764360726

Publisher: Birkhäuser, 2000

Synopsis

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill have been practising architecture for more than sixty years and are amongst the most well-known architectural firms worldwide, with offices in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong and London. They first attracted attention in the 1950s when they created notable corporate buildings such as Lever House in New York, and went on to gain acclaim with their engineering achievements. The technology developed by SOM made buildings such as Sears Tower in Chicago possible - for many years the highest building in the world. This volume presents a selection of those recent projects which are of a particularly high aesthetic and technical standard. Amongst the projects included are: International Terminal at San Francisco International Airport, Jin Mao Building in Shanghai, Hong Kong Convention Center, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in Beijing, and Changi Airport in Singapore.

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Reviews

The architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is inextricably associated with the sleek, corporate phase of the International Style that flowered in the 1950s and 1960s. Those who think SOM's glory days ended shortly afterwards may raise an eyebrow at the words "recent work" in the subtitle. Architectural journalist Bussel presents 23 projects in 12 countries, spanning from 1987 to 2004. Each project is well illustrated with photos, plans, models, and computer-generated images. Vintage black-and-white photos of classic SOM structures, such as the 1958 Inland Steel Building, are interspersed among the recent projects, over half of which are under construction or still on the drawing boards. The author not so subtly intimates that SOM is entering another golden age, an assessment with which critics appraising New York's Penn Station Redevelopment or the San Francisco International Terminal may well concur. Strangely, perhaps SOM's most prominent project, another "world's tallest building" scheduled for completion in 2003 in Chicago, is not included. An interesting but optional purchase for academic and large public libraries.DDavid Solt sz, Cuyahoga Cty. P.L., Parma, OH
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Birkhäuser
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3764360720
• ISBN 13: 9783764360726
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192