Fazlur R. Khan Collection
1944-2017
Fazlur Khan (1929-1982) Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Born and educated in Bangladesh, with advanced degrees in engineering from University of Illinois, Fazlur Khan (1929–1982) proposed elegant engineering solutions to the design problems of high-rise buildings. Khan is best known as the Skidmore Owings & Merrill partner who designed the structural systems for the John Hancock Center and Sears Tower in Chicago, as well as many other innovative designs for the SOM firm. As a professor of engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology he exercised enormous influence on a generation of architects and engineers who would bring the architecture and engineering design processes in much closer harmony. Khan was also highly influential in the American Bangladeshi community, particularly during the country’s struggle for independence during the early 1970s. This collection includes published and unpublished articles, lectures, curriculum files, project files and reports, research materials, slides, and photographs.
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Contact the Ryerson and Burnham Art and Architecture Archives:
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Manuscripts, typescript papers, printed papers, correspondence, black and white photographic prints, color photographic prints, black and white slides, color slides, audiocassettes, architectural reprographic prints and graphite drawings.