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side_sponsors.php
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The AIA gratefully
acknowledges the
following sponsors
of our 150th Anniversary
celebration:
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Founders Circle:
$1,000,000:
McGraw-Hill
Construction,
Official Media
Sponsor
Autodesk,
Official Software
Sponsor |
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Year Awarded: 1983
Born: ;
1903, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
1984
Quote
The key . . . is not merely a conglomeration of goods. Rather it is good circulation—ease of movement. . . . Potential shoppers should be occupied in noticing displays of goods, not in watching out for people who might bump into them.
—in support of redeveloping public spaces
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• 1982: Enerplex, North Building, at Princeton, N.J.
• 1976: Sears Tower, at Chicago
• 1974: First Wisconsin Plaza, at Madison, Wisc.
• 1972: Haj Terminal, at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
• 1971: Weyerhaeuser Headquarters, at near Tacoma, Wash.
• 1970: John Hancock Center, at Chicago
• 1968: Wells College Library, at Aurora, N.Y.
• 1962: Air Force Academy Chapel, at Colorado Springs,
Colo.
Biography
Nathaniel Alexander Owings was born in Indianapolis and grew up
in the Midwest. In 1920, he traveled through Europe on a Rotary
Club award and became enamored with architecture during the trip.
On his return, he entered the University of Illinois to study
architecture, but had to quit the school because of illness. He
returned to his studies at Cornell University, earning a degree in
1927, and then worked briefly in the New York office of York &
Sawyer.
Owings met Louis Skidmore in 1929 when Skidmore married his sister
Eloise. From 1929 to 1933, Owings assisted Skidmore on the 1933
Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago. In 1936, he and Skidmore
formally established their partnership in Chicago, which became
Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill (SOM) when the engineer John
Merrill joined them in 1939. The result was a full-service
architecture practice, providing planning, design, engineering, and
management talent out of one office.
The firm, one of the most prestigious in the country and home to
many of the most notable American architects of the 20th century,
had become one of the country’s largest architecture practices
by 1952, with more than 1,000 staff across the United States. Under
Owings and Skidmore’s leadership, SOM became known for its
management style and its dedication to teamwork, including a
partner, a project manager, and a designer in its design
processes.
With his wife Margaret Wentworth, Owings drafted the Big Sur Land
Use Plan, a master plan to protect Big Sur’s scenic coastline.
This first plan became a foundation for Big Sur’s eventual
land-use policies. This was just one step in Owings’s move
toward a new role as environmental activist and spokesman. He also
worked to restrict the development of a large highway through the
city of Baltimore and worked on the Advisory Council on
Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., where he advocated
returning portions of the National Mall to pedestrian use and
restricting further developmental growth in that region.
In 1969 Owings published The American Aesthetic, which
helped to plant seeds for America’s environmental movement. In
1973 Owings wrote The Spaces In Between: An Architect’s
Journey. |
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