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Moshe Safdie

Moshe Safdie  (משה ספדיה; born July 14, 1938) is an Israeli-Canadian-American architect, urban planner, educator, theorist, and author. He is known for incorporating principles of socially responsible design throughout his six-decade career. His projects include cultural, educational, and civic institutions; neighborhoods and public parks; housing; mixed-use urban centers; airports; and master plans for existing communities and entirely new cities in the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia. Safdie is most identified with designing Marina Bay Sands and Jewel Changi Airport, as well as his debut project Habitat 67, which was originally conceived as his thesis at McGill University. He holds legal citizenship in Israel, Canada, and the United States.

Early life and education
Safdie was born in the city of Haifa to a family of Syrian Jews, his father was from Aleppo, and his mother whose family had origins in Aleppo was from Manchester. He was nine years old and living in Haifa when the Israeli Declaration of Independence was issued by David Ben-Gurion. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, he lived on a kibbutz, working in the countryside, where he tended goats and kept bees. In 1953, the Israeli government restricted imports in response to an economic and currency crisis, severely affecting Safdie's father's textile business. Consequently, when Safdie was 15, his family emigrated from Israel to Canada and settled down in the city of Montreal, where he attended Westmount High School.

In September 1955, he registered for the six-year architectural degree program at the McGill University Faculty of Engineering. In his fifth year, Safdie was named University Scholar. The following summer, he was awarded the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) scholarship. He traveled across North America to observe housing developments in the continent's major cities. In his final year, Safdie developed his thesis, entitled "A Case for City Living," and described as "A Three-Dimensional Modular Building System." He received his degree in 1961. Two years later, while apprenticing with Estonian-American architect Louis Kahn, Safdie was invited by his thesis advisor, Dutch-Canadian architect Sandy van Ginkel, to submit his modular project for the World Exposition of 1967, which was to be held in Montreal. Constructed permanently there, it became known as Habitat 67.

Career
In 1964, Safdie established Safdie Architects in Montreal to undertake work on Habitat 67, an adaptation of his thesis at McGill University. Habitat 67 was selected by Canada as a central feature of Expo 67. The project pioneered the design and implementation of three-dimensional, prefabricated units for living. Safdie designed the complex as a neighborhood with open spaces, garden terraces, and many other amenities typically reserved for the single-family home and adapted to a high-density urban environment.

In 1970, Safdie established a branch office of his practice in Jerusalem. During this period, Safdie combined his interests in social activism and advanced technologies with respect for historical and regional context. He worked on the restoration of the Old City and the construction of Mamilla Mall, linking old and new cities. Other significant works in Israel include the New City of Modi’in, the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum, Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies, Ben Gurion International Airport, National Campus for the Archeology of Israel, multiple projects for Hebrew Union College, and others. During this period, Safdie also worked with leaders in Senegal and Iran. Safdie was consulted during the development of the Merkava tank by Israel Tal.

Later, Safdie received commissions for public buildings in Canada: the National Gallery of Canada, the Quebec Museum of Civilization, and Vancouver Library Square. Other notable cultural works include the Khalsa Heritage Memorial Complex, the national museum of the Sikh people in Punjab, India; the United States Institute of Peace Headquarters on the Mall in Washington, DC; the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, Missouri; and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Safdie has worked on projects in emerging markets, and brought projects to completion in shorter periods, at larger scales. including: Marina Bay Sands, a mixed-use resort integrated with Singapore's iconic Skypark; Jewel Changi Airport, a new community-centric airport typology combining marketplace and garden; and Raffles City Chongqing, a mixed-use development featuring over one million square meters of housing, office, retail, transportation, and hotel programs. To connect four towers in Chongqing, China, he designed a sky bridge that has been referred to as the world's longest "Horizontal Skyscraper." Safdie and his team have used sky bridges and multi-level connectivity in other projects to make skyscrapers more accessible.

Practice
Today, Safdie Architects is headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, near Harvard University, with additional offices in Jerusalem, Toronto, Shanghai, and Singapore. The business is organized as a partnership.

Safdie formed a research program within his office to pursue the advanced investigation of design topics. The practice-oriented fellowship explores speculative ideas outside normal business practice constraints. Fellows work independently with Safdie and firm principals to formulate specific proposals and research plans. The salaried position is in-residence, with full access to project teams and outside consultants. Past fellowships include Habitat of the Future, Mobility on Demand, and Tall Buildings in the City.

In December 2023, Safdie Architects announced it was suspending its involvement in controversial hotel development in Jerusalem's Armenian quarter, citing "controversy surrounding the land lease agreement". This followed an attack by some 30 armed masked individuals on Armenian community members holding a vigil at the site. The Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem accused Danny Rothman, Safdie Architects' client for the project, of organizing the attack.

Academia
In 1978, after teaching at McGill, Ben Gurion, and Yale universities, Safdie was appointed Director of the Urban Design Program at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design (GSD) and moved to Boston, Massachusetts. He served as Director until 1984. From 1984 to 1989, he was the Ian Woodner Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at Harvard. Safdie continues to work closely with the GSD, frequently teaching design studio; Notably, Rethinking the Humanist High-Rise (2019) and Rethinking Hudson Yards (2017).

Personal life
In 1959, Safdie married Nina Nusynowicz, a Polish-Israeli Holocaust survivor. Safdie and Nusynowicz have two children, a daughter and a son. Both were born during the inception and erection of Habitat 67. Just before its opening, Safdie and his young family moved into the development. Safdie and Nusynowicz divorced in 1981. His daughter Taal is an architect in San Diego, a partner of the firm Safdie Rabines Architects; His son Oren is a playwright who has written several plays about architecture. Safdie's great-nephews are independent filmmakers, Josh and Benny.

In 1981, Safdie married Michal Ronnen, a Jerusalem-born photographer and daughter of artist Vera Ronnen. Safdie and Ronnen have two daughters, Carmelle and Yasmin. Carmelle is an artist, and Yasmin is a social worker.

Recognition

 * 2020: Genius Award, Liberty Science Center `
 * 2020: Lynn S. Beedle Lifetime Achievement Award, Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH)
 * 2019: Honorary Doctorate, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
 * 2019: Wolf Prize in Architecture, International Wolf Foundation
 * 2018: Lifetime Achievement Award, Design Futures Council
 * 2017: Honorary Doctorate, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
 * 2015: Gold Medal, American Institute of Architects
 * 2012: Medaille du Merite, Ordre des architectes du Québec
 * 2005: Companion Order of Canada, Governor General-in-Council of Canada
 * 2003: Lifetime Achievement Award, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
 * 2002: Honorary Fellow, Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland
 * 2001: Honorary Doctorate, Hebrew College
 * 1997: Jewish Cultural Achievement Award in the Visual Arts, National Foundation for Jewish Culture
 * 1996: Honorary Doctorate in Engineering, Technical University of Nova Scotia
 * 1996: Academy Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
 * 1995: Gold Medal, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
 * 1995: College of Fellows, American Institute of Architects
 * 1993: Richard Neutra Award for Professional Excellence, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
 * 1989: Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts, University of Victoria
 * 1988: Honorary Doctorate in Sciences, Laval University
 * 1987: Mt. Scopus Award for Humanitarianism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
 * 1986: The Order of Canada, Governor General-in-Council of Canada
 * 1982: Honorary Doctor of Law, McGill University
 * 1982: Tau Sigma Delta Gold Medal for Distinction in Design, Tau Sigma Delta Grand Chapter
 * 1961: Lieutenant Governor's Gold Medal for Exceptional Merit, Lieutenant Governor of Québec

Exhibitions

 * 2017: Habitat 67 vers l’avenir: The Shape of Things to Come, Université du Québec à Montréal
 * 2010–2014: Global Citizen: The Architecture of Moshe Safdie, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada / Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, California / Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, USA
 * 2012–2013: Moshe Safdie: The Path to Crystal Bridges, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, USA
 * 2004: An Architect's Vision: Moshe Safdie’s Jepson Center for the Arts, Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, USA
 * 2003–2004: Building a New Museum, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, USA
 * 1998: Moshe Safdie, Museum Architecture 1971–1998, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
 * 1989: Moshe Safdie, Projects: 1979–1989, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
 * 1985: The National Gallery of Canada, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA / National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
 * 1982: Context, Traveling exhibit sponsored by New York Institute for the Humanities
 * 1973–1974: For Everyone A Garden, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland, USA / National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada / San Francisco MoMA, San Francisco, California, USA

Films

 * 2020: "Moshe Safdie: Another Dimension of Architecture," I-Talk Productions
 * 2018: "Time Space Existence," Plane-Site
 * 2004: "Moshe Safdie: The Power of Architecture," Dir. Donald Winkler
 * 2003: "My Architect: A Son’s Journey," Dir. Nathaniel Kahn
 * 1997: "The Sound of the Carceri with Yo-Yo Ma," Dir. Francois Girard
 * 1973: "The Innocent Door" / "Coldspring New Town," National Film Board of Canada

Archives
The Moshe Safdie Archive, donated to McGill University by the architect in 1990, is one of the most extensive individual collections of architectural documentation in Canada. Comprising material from 235 projects, the Moshe Safdie Archive records the progression of Safdie's career from his first unpublished university papers to Safdie Architects' current projects. The collection includes over 140,000 drawings, over 200 architectural models, extensive project files, audiovisual and digital material, as well as over 100,000 project photos and travel slides, 215 personal sketchbooks, and 2,250 large sketches. Administered by the McGill University Library, a list of physical holdings are available to researchers.

Select projects

 * 1967: Habitat 67 at Expo 67 World's Fair, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
 * 1987: Musée de la Civilisation, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
 * 1988: National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
 * 1989: New City of Modi'in, Israel
 * 1989: Esplanade Condominiums, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
 * 1991: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
 * 1992: The Class of 1959 Chapel, Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
 * 1994: John G. Diefenbaker Building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
 * 1994: Rosovsky Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
 * 1995: Yad Vashem Children's and Deportees Memorials, Jerusalem
 * 1995: Vancouver Library Square, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
 * 1998: David Citadel Hotel and David's Village, Jerusalem
 * 1998: Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem
 * 1999: Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies and Rabin Tomb, Tel Aviv, Israel
 * 2000: Exploration Place Science Museum, Wichita, Kansas, U.Sm
 * 2003: Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, U.S. [12]
 * 2003: Salt Lake City Public Library, Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.
 * 2003: Cairnhill Road Condominiums, Singapore
 * 2003: Eleanor Roosevelt College, University of California, San Diego, California, U.S.
 * 2004: Airside Building of Terminal 3, Ben Gurion International Airport, Tel Aviv, Israel
 * 2005: Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum, Jerusalem
 * 2006: Jepson Center for the Arts at Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, U.S.
 * 2007: Terminal 1, Toronto Pearson International Airport, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
 * 2008: United States Federal Courthouse, District of Massachusetts, Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.
 * 2008: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) Headquarters, Washington, D.C., U.S.
 * 2009: Mamilla Center, Jerusalem
 * 2009: Mamilla Hotel, Jerusalem
 * 2010: Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort, Singapore
 * 2010: ArtScience Museum, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
 * 2011: United States Institute of Peace Headquarters, Washington, D.C., U.S.
 * 2011: Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
 * 2011: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, U.S.
 * 2011: Khalsa Heritage Memorial Complex (Virasat-e-Khalsa), Anandpur Sahib, Punjab, India
 * 2013: Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, California, U.S.
 * 2012: Sky Habitat, Singapore
 * 2017: Eling Residences, Chongqing, PRC
 * 2017: Habitat Qinhuangdao, Qinhuangdao, PRC
 * 2019: National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel, Jerusalem
 * 2019: Monde Residential Development, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
 * 2019: Jewel Changi Airport, Singapore
 * 2020: Raffles City Chongqing, Chongqing, PRC
 * 2021: Serena del Mar, Cartagena, Colombia
 * 2021: Altair, Colombo, Sri Lanka

Works

 * With Intention to Build: The Unrealized Concepts, Ideas, and Dreams of Moshe Safdie. Ed. Michael Crosbie. Melbourne, Victoria: Images Publishing Group, 2020.
 * "The Story of Israeli Architecture in Singapore" in Beating the Odds Together: 50 Years of Singapore-Israel Ties. Ed. Mattia Tomba. Singapore: World Scientific Book, 2019 . ISBN 978-981-121-468-4
 * Megascale, Order & Complexity. Ed. Michael Jemtrud. Montreal: McGill University School of Architecture, 2009.
 * The City After the Automobile: An Architect's Vision. With Wendy Kohn. New York: Basic Books; Toronto: Stoddart Publishing Co., 1997.
 * The Language and Medium of Architecture (lecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design delivered November 15, 1989)
 * Jerusalem: The Future of the Past. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989.
 * Beyond Habitat by 20 Years. Ed. John Kettle. Montreal and Plattsburgh, NY: Tundra Books, 1987.
 * The Harvard Jerusalem Studio: Urban Designs for the Holy City]. Asst. eds. Rudy Barton and Uri Shetrit. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1985.
 * Form & Purpose. Ed. John Kettle. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982.
 * Habitat Bill of Rights With Nader Ardalan, George Candilis, Balkrishna V. Doshi, and Josep Lluís Sert. Imperial Government of Iran Ministry of Housing, 1976.
 * For Everyone A Garden. Ed. Judith Wolin. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1974.
 * Beyond Habitat. Ed. John Kettle. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1970.
 * Habitat. Montreal: Tundra Books, 1967.

Works about Safdie

 * Jewel Changi Airport. Melbourne, Victoria: Images Publishing Group, 2020.
 * Safdie. Mulgrave, Victoria: Images Publishing Group, 2014.
 * Reaching for the Sky: The Marina Bay Sands Singapore. Singapore: ORO Editions, 2013.
 * Peace Building: The Mission, Work, and Architecture of the United States Institute of Peace. Dalton, MA: The Studley Press, 2011.
 * Valentin, Nilda, ed. Moshe Safdie. Rome: Edizione Kappa, 2010.
 * Moshe Safdie I. Mulgrave, Victoria: Images Publishing Group, 2009.
 * Moshe Safdie II. Mulgrave, Victoria: Images Publishing Group, 2009.
 * Global Citizen: The Architecture of Moshe Safdie. New York:Scala Publishers, Ltd., 2007.
 * Yad Vashem: Moshe Safdie – The Architecture of Memory. Baden, Switzerland: Lars Müller Publishers, 2006.
 * Moshe Safdie, Museum Architecture 1971–1988. Tel Aviv: Genia Schreiber University Art Gallery, Tel Aviv University, 1998.
 * Kohn, Wendy, ed. Moshe Safdie. London: Academy Editions, 1996.
 * Moshe Safdie: Buildings and Projects, 1967–1992. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1996.
 * Rybczynski, Witold. A Place for Art: The Architecture of the National Gallery of Canada. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1993.
 * Montreal Museum of Fine Arts: Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion. Montreal: Montreal Museum of Arts, 1991.

title: Moshe Safdie


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Louis Kahn

Louis Isadore Kahn (born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky; March 5 1901 – March 17, 1974) was an Estonian-born American architect based in Philadelphia. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935. While continuing his private practice, he served as a design critic and professor of architecture at Yale School of Architecture from 1947 to 1957. From 1957 until his death, he was a professor of architecture at the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania.

Kahn created a style that was monumental and monolithic; his heavy buildings for the most part do not hide their weight, their materials, or the way they are assembled. He was awarded the AIA Gold Medal and the RIBA Gold Medal. At the time of his death, he was considered by some as "America's foremost living architect."

Early life
Louis Kahn, whose original name was Itze-Leib (Leiser-Itze) Schmuilowsky (Schmalowski), was born into a poor Jewish family in the Russian Empire (present-day Estonia). His exact birthplace is disputed, but it is widely regarded to be Kuressaare, Saaremaa, although some sources mention Pärnu.

He spent his early childhood in Kuressaare on the island of Saaremaa, then part of the Russian Empire's Livonian Governorate. At the age of three, he saw coals in the stove and was captivated by the light of the coal. He put the coal in his apron, which caught on fire and burned his face. He carried these scars for the rest of his life.

In 1906, his family emigrated to the United States, as they feared that his father would be recalled into the military during the Russo-Japanese War. His birth year may have been inaccurately recorded in the process of immigration. According to his son's 2003 documentary film, the family could not afford pencils. They made their own charcoal sticks from burnt twigs so that Louis could earn a little money from drawings. Later he earned money by playing piano to accompany silent movies in theaters. He became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. on May 15, 1914. His father changed their name to Kahn in 1915.

Education
Kahn excelled in art from a young age, repeatedly winning the annual award for the best watercolor by a Philadelphia high school student. He was an unenthusiastic and undistinguished student at Philadelphia Central High School until he took a course in architecture in his senior year, which convinced him to become an architect. He turned down an offer to go to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts to study art under a full scholarship, instead working at a variety of jobs to pay his own tuition for a degree in architecture at the University of Pennsylvania School of Fine Arts. There, he studied under Paul Philippe Cret in a version of the Beaux-Arts tradition, one that discouraged excessive ornamentation.

Career
After completing his Bachelor of Architecture in 1924, Kahn worked as senior draftsman in the office of the city architect, John Molitor. He worked on the designs for the 1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition.

In 1928, Kahn made a European tour. He was interested particularly in the medieval walled city of Carcassonne, France, and the castles of Scotland, rather than any of the strongholds of classicism or modernism. After returning to the United States in 1929, Kahn worked in the offices of Paul Philippe Cret, his former studio critic at the University of Pennsylvania, and then with Zantzinger, Borie and Medary in Philadelphia.

In 1932, Kahn and Dominique Berninger founded the Architectural Research Group, whose members were interested in the populist social agenda and new aesthetics of the European avant-gardes. Among the projects Kahn worked on during this collaboration are schemes for public housing that he had presented to the Public Works Administration, which supported some similar projects during the Great Depression. They remained unbuilt. Among the more important of Kahn's early collaborations was one with George Howe. Kahn worked with Howe in the late 1930s on projects for the Philadelphia Housing Authority and again in 1940, along with German-born architect Oscar Stonorov, for the design of housing developments in other parts of Pennsylvania. A formal architectural office partnership between Kahn and Oscar Stonorov began in February 1942 and ended in March 1947, which produced fifty-four documented projects and buildings.

Kahn did not arrive at his distinctive architectural style until he was in his fifties. Initially working in a fairly orthodox version of the International Style, he was strongly influenced by a stay as architect-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome during 1950, which marked a turning point in his career. After visiting the ruins of ancient buildings in Italy, Greece, and Egypt, he adopted a back-to-the-basics approach. He developed his own style, as influenced by earlier modern movements, but not limited by their sometimes-dogmatic ideologies. In the 1950s and 1960s, as a consultant architect for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, Kahn developed several plans for the center of Philadelphia that were never executed.

In 1961, he received a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts to study traffic movement in Philadelphia and to create a proposal for a viaduct system.

He described this proposal at a lecture given in 1962 at the International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado:

"In the center of town the streets should become buildings. This should be interplayed with a sense of movement which does not tax local streets for non-local traffic. There should be a system of viaducts which encase an area which can reclaim the local streets for their own use, and it should be made so this viaduct has a ground floor of shops and usable area. A model which I did for the Graham Foundation recently, and which I presented to Mr. Entenza, showed the scheme."

Kahn's teaching career began at Yale University in 1947. He eventually was named as the Albert F. Bemis Professor of Architecture and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1956. Kahn then returned to Philadelphia to teach at the University of Pennsylvania from 1957 until his death, becoming the Paul Philippe Cret Professor of Architecture. He also was a visiting lecturer at Princeton University School of Architecture from 1961 to 1967.

In 1974, Kahn died of a heart attack soon after a work trip to India.

Awards and honors
Kahn was elected a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1953. He was made a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1964, the year he was awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal. In 1965, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate Academician, and received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Yale University. He was made a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1968 and awarded the AIA Gold Medal, the highest award given by the AIA, in 1971, and the Royal Gold Medal by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), in 1972. In 1971, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

Personal life
Kahn had three children with three women. With his wife Esther he had a daughter, Sue Ann. With Anne Tyng, who began her working collaboration and personal relationship with Kahn in 1945, he also had a daughter, Alexandra. When Tyng became pregnant in 1953, to mitigate the scandal, she went to Rome, for the birth of their daughter. With Harriet Pattison, he had a son, Nathaniel Kahn. Anne Tyng was an architect and teacher, while Harriet Pattison was a pioneering landscape architect. Kahn's obituary in The New York Times, written by Paul Goldberger, mentions only Esther and his daughter by her as survivors.

Documentary
In 2003, Nathaniel Kahn released a documentary about his father, My Architect: A Son's Journey. The Oscar-nominated film provides views and insights into Kahn's architecture while exploring him personally through his family, friends and colleagues.

Designs

 * Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut (1951–1953), the first significant commission of Louis Kahn. The ceilings, which are three feet (0.9 meters) thick, consist of a grid of triangular openings that draw the eye upward into dimly-lit, three-sided pyramidal spaces. These exposed spaces provide the means for channeling the heating, cooling, and electrical services throughout the galleries.
 * Richards Medical Research Laboratories, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1957–1965), a breakthrough in Kahn's career that helped set new directions for modern architecture with its clear expression of served and servant spaces and its evocation of the architecture of the past.
 * The Salk Institute, La Jolla, California (1959–1965) was to be a campus composed of three main clusters: meeting and conference areas, living quarters, and laboratories. Only the laboratory cluster, consisting of two parallel blocks enclosing a water garden, was built. The two laboratory blocks frame a long view of the Pacific Ocean, accentuated by a thin linear fountain that seems to reach for the horizon. It has been named "arguably the defining work" of Kahn.
 * First Unitarian Church, Rochester, New York (1959–1969), named as one of the greatest religious structures of the twentieth century by Paul Goldberger, the Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critic. Tall, narrow window recesses create an irregular rhythm of shadows on the exterior while four light towers flood the sanctuary walls with indirect, natural light.
 * Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital, Dhaka, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh)
 * Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, in Ahmedabad, India (1961)
 * Eleanor Donnelly Erdman Hall, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania (1960–1965), designed as a modern Scottish castle.
 * Phillips Exeter Academy Library, Exeter, New Hampshire (1965–1972), awarded the Twenty-five Year Award by the American Institute of Architects in 1997. Its dramatic atrium features enormous circular openings into the book stacks.
 * Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas (1967–1972), features repeated bays of cycloid-shaped barrel vaults with light slits along the apex, which bathe the artwork on display in an ever-changing diffuse light.
 * Arts United Center, Fort Wayne, Indiana (1973), The only building realized of a ten-building Arts Campus vision, Kahn's only theatre and building in the Midwest
 * Hurva Synagogue, Jerusalem, Israel, (1968–1974), unbuilt
 * Yale Center for British Art, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (1969–1974)
 * Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, Roosevelt Island, New York (1972–1974), construction completed 2012
 * Jatiyo Sangshad Bhaban (National Assembly Building) in Dhaka, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) was Kahn's last project, developed 1962 to 1974. Kahn got the design contract with the help of Muzharul Islam, one of his students at Yale University, who worked with him on the project. The Bangladeshi Parliament building is the centerpiece of the national capital complex designed by Kahn, which includes hostels, dining halls, and a hospital. According to Robert McCarter, author of Louis I. Kahn, "it is one of the twentieth century's greatest architectural monuments, and is without question Kahn's magnum opus."

Timeline of works
All dates refer to the year project commenced
 * 1935 – Jersey Homesteads Cooperative Development, Hightstown, New Jersey
 * 1940 – Jesse Oser House, 628 Stetson Road, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania
 * 1944 – Carver Court, Foundry Street, Coatsville, Pennsylvania
 * 1947 – Phillip Q. Roche House, 2101 Harts Lane, Conshohocken, Pennsylvania
 * 1950 – Morton and Lenore Weiss House, 2935 Whitehall Rd, East Norriton Township, Pennsylvania
 * 1951 – Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel Street, New Haven, Connecticut
 * 1952 – City Tower Project, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (unbuilt)
 * 1954 – Jewish Community Center (including Trenton Bath House), 999 Lower Ferry Road, Ewing, New Jersey
 * 1956 – Wharton Esherick Studio, 1520 Horseshoe Trail, Malvern, Pennsylvania (designed with Wharton Esherick)
 * 1957 – Richards Medical Research Laboratories, University of Pennsylvania, 3700 Hamilton Walk, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
 * 1957 – Fred E. and Elaine Cox Clever House, 417 Sherry Way, Cherry Hill, New Jersey
 * 1959 – Margaret Esherick House, 204 Sunrise Lane, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
 * 1958 – Tribune Review Publishing Company Building, 622 Cabin Hill Drive, Greensburg, Pennsylvania
 * 1959 – Salk Institute for Biological Studies, 10 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, California
 * 1959 – First Unitarian Church, 220 South Winton Road, Rochester, New York
 * 1960 – Erdman Hall Dormitories, Bryn Mawr College, Morris Avenue, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
 * 1960 – Norman Fisher House, 197 East Mill Road, Hatboro, Pennsylvania
 * 1961 – Point Counterpoint, a converted barge performance venue used by the American Wind Symphony Orchestra
 * 1961 – Philadelphia's Mikveh Israel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (unbuilt)
 * 1961 – Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India
 * 1962 – Jatiyo Sangshad Bhaban, the National Assembly Building of Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh
 * 1963 – President's Estate, Islamabad, Pakistan (unbuilt)
 * 1965 – Phillips Exeter Academy Library, Front Street, Exeter, New Hampshire
 * 1965 – Phillips Exeter Academy Dining Hall, Elm Street, Exeter, New Hampshire
 * 1966 – Kimbell Art Museum, 3333 Camp Bowie Boulevard, Fort Worth, Texas
 * 1966 – Olivetti-Underwood Factory, Valley Road, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
 * 1966 – Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester, Chappaqua, New York
 * 1968 – Hurva Synagogue, Jerusalem, Israel (unbuilt)
 * 1969 – Yale Center for British Art, Yale University, 1080 Chapel Street, New Haven, Connecticut
 * 1971 – Steven Korman House, Sheaff Lane, Fort Washington, Pennsylvania
 * 1973 – Arts United Center (Formerly known as the Fine Arts Foundation Civic Center), Fort Wayne, Indiana
 * 1974 – Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, Roosevelt Island, New York City, completed 2012.
 * 1976 – Point Counterpoint II, an improved concert venue for the American Wind Symphony Orchestra, is debuted posthumously
 * 1979 – Flora Lamson Hewlett Library of the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California

Legacy
Louis Kahn's work infused the International style with a fastidious, highly personal taste. Isamu Noguchi called him "a philosopher among architects." He was concerned with creating strong formal distinctions between served spaces and servant spaces. What he meant by servant spaces was not spaces for servants, but rather spaces that serve other spaces, such as stairwells, corridors, restrooms, or any other back-of-house function such as storage space or mechanical rooms. His palette of materials tended toward heavily textured brick and bare concrete, the textures often reinforced by juxtaposition to highly refined surfaces such as travertine marble. Kahn argued that brick can be more than the basic building material:

"If you think of Brick, you say to Brick, 'What do you want, Brick?' And Brick says to you, 'I like an Arch.' And if you say to Brick, 'Look, arches are expensive, and I can use a concrete lintel over you. What do you think of that, Brick?' Brick says, 'I like an Arch.' And it's important, you see, that you honor the material that you use. ... You can only do it if you honor the brick and glorify the brick instead of shortchanging it."

In addition to the influence Kahn's more well-known work has on contemporary architects (such as Muzharul Islam, Tadao Ando), some of his work (especially the unbuilt City Tower Project) became very influential among the high-tech architects of the late twentieth century (such as Renzo Piano, who worked in Kahn's office, Richard Rogers, and Norman Foster). His prominent apprentices include Muzharul Islam, Moshe Safdie, Robert Venturi, Jack Diamond, and Charles Dagit.

Many years after his death, Kahn continues to provoke controversy. Before his Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island was built, a New York Times editorial opined:

"There's a magic to the project. That the task is daunting makes it worthy of the man it honors, who guided the nation through the Depression, the New Deal and a world war. As for Mr. Kahn, he died in 1974, as he passed alone through New York City's Penn Station. In his briefcase were renderings of the memorial, his last completed plan."

The editorial describes Kahn's plan as:

"... simple and elegant. Drawing inspiration from Roosevelt's defense of the Four Freedoms—of speech and religion, and from want and fear—he designed an open 'room and a garden' at the bottom of the island. Trees on either side form a 'V' defining a green space, and leading to a two-walled stone room at the water's edge that frames the United Nations and the rest of the skyline."

A group spearheaded by William J. vanden Heuvel raised over $50 million in public and private funds between 2005 and 2012 to establish the memorial. Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park officially opened to the public on October 24, 2012.

In popular culture
Kahn was the subject of the 2003 Oscar-nominated documentary film My Architect: A Son's Journey, presented by Nathaniel Kahn, his son. Kahn's complicated family life inspired the "Undaunted Mettle" episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

In the 1993 film Indecent Proposal, character David Murphy (played by Woody Harrelson), referenced Kahn during a lecture to architecture students, attributing the quote "Even a brick wants to be something" to Kahn.

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Lewis Spratlan, with collaborators Jenny Kallick and John Downey (Amherst College, class of 2003), composed the chamber opera Architect as a character study of Kahn. The premiere recording was due to be released in 2012 by Navona Records.

In Showtime's Billions (Season 4, Episode 6), Taylor Mason and Wendy Rhoades meet at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park and discuss Kahn's genius and his relationship with his estranged son.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Louis Kahn


text:
Lipogram

A lipogram (from λειπογράμματος, leipográmmatos, "leaving out a letter") is a kind of constrained writing or word game consisting of writing paragraphs or longer works in which a particular letter or group of letters is avoided. Extended Ancient Greek texts avoiding the letter sigma are the earliest examples of lipograms.

Writing a lipogram may be a trivial task when avoiding uncommon letters like Z, J, Q, or X, but it is much more challenging to avoid common letters like E, T, or A in the English language, as the author must omit many ordinary words. Grammatically meaningful and smooth-flowing lipograms can be difficult to compose. Identifying lipograms can also be problematic, as there is always the possibility that a given piece of writing in any language may be unintentionally lipogrammatic. For example, Poe's poem The Raven contains no Z, but there is no evidence that this was intentional.

A pangrammatic lipogram is a text that uses every letter of the alphabet except one. For example, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" omits the letter S, which the usual pangram includes by using the word jumps.

History
Lasus of Hermione, who lived during the second half of the sixth century BCE, is the most ancient author of a lipogram. This makes the lipogram, according to Quintus Curtius Rufus, "the most ancient systematic artifice of Western literature". Lasus did not like the sigma, and excluded it from one of his poems, entitled Ode to the Centaurs, of which nothing remains; as well as a Hymn to Demeter, of which the first verse remains:

The Greek poets from late antiquity Nestor of Laranda and Tryphiodorus wrote lipogrammatic adaptations of the Homeric poems: Nestor composed an Iliad, which was followed by Tryphiodorus' Odyssey. Both Nestor's Iliad and Tryphiodorus' Odyssey were composed of 24 books (like the original Iliad and Odyssey) each book omitting a subsequent letter of the Greek alphabet. Therefore, the first book omitted alpha, the second beta, and so forth.

Twelve centuries after Tryphiodorus wrote his lipogrammatic Odyssey, in 1711, the influential London essayist and journalist Joseph Addison commented on this work (although it had been lost), arguing that "it must have been amusing to see the most elegant word of the language rejected like "a diamond with a flaw in it" if it was tainted by the proscribed letter".

Petrus Riga, a canon of Sainte-Marie de Reims during the 11th century, translated the Bible, and due to its scriptural obscurities called it Aurora. Each canto of the translation was followed by a resume in Lipogrammatic verse; the first canto has no A, the second has no B, and so on. There are two hundred and fifty manuscripts of Petrus Riga's Bible still preserved.

There is a tradition of German and Italian lipograms excluding the letter R dating from the seventeenth century until modern times. While some authors excluded other letters, it was the exclusion of the R which ensured the practice of the lipogram continued into modern times. In German especially, the R, while not the most prevalent letter, has a very important grammatical role, as masculine pronouns, etc. in the nominative case include an R (e.g. er, der, dieser, jener, welcher). For the Italian authors, it seems to be a profound dislike of the letter R which prompted them to write lipograms excluding this letter (and often only this letter).

There is also a long tradition of vocalic lipograms, in which a vowel (or vowels) is omitted. This tends to be the most difficult form of the lipogram. This practice was developed mainly in Spain by the Portuguese author Alonso de Alcala y Herrera who published an octavo entitled Varios efectos de amor, en cinco novelas exemplares, y nuevo artificio para escribir prosa y versos sin una de las letras vocales. From Spain, the method moved into France and England.

One of the most remarkable examples of a lipogram is Ernest Vincent Wright's novel Gadsby (1939), which has over 50,000 words but not a single letter E. Wright's self-imposed rule prohibited such common English words as the and he, plurals ending in -es, past tenses ending in -ed, and even abbreviations like Mr. (since it is short for Mister) or Rob (for Robert). Yet the narration flows fairly smoothly, and the book was praised by critics for its literary merits.

Wright was motivated to write Gadsby by an earlier four-stanza lipogrammatic poem of another author.

Even earlier, Spanish playwright Enrique Jardiel Poncela published five short stories between 1926 and 1927, each one omitting a vowel; the best known are "El Chofer Nuevo" ("The new Driver"), without the letter A, and "Un marido sin vocación" ("A Vocationless Husband"), without the E.

Interest in lipograms was rekindled by Georges Perec's novel La Disparition (1969) (openly inspired by Wright's Gadsby) and its English translation A Void by Gilbert Adair. Both works are missing the letter E, which is the most common letter in French as well as in English. A Spanish translation instead omits the letter A, the second most common letter in that language. Perec subsequently wrote Les revenentes (1972), a novel that uses no vowels except for E. Perec was a member of Oulipo, a group of French authors who adopted a variety of constraints in their work. La Disparition is, to date, the longest lipogram in existence.

Analysing lipograms
Lipograms are sometimes dismissed by academia. "Literary history seems deliberately to ignore writing as practice, as work, as play".

In his book Rethinking Writing, Roy Harris notes that without the ability to analyse language, the lipogram would be unable to exist. He argues that "the lipogram would be inconceivable unless there were writing systems based on fixed inventories of graphic units, and unless it were possible to classify written texts on the base of the presence or absence of one of those units irrespective of any phonetic value it might have or any function in the script". He then continues on to argue that as the Greeks were able to invent this system of writing as they had a concept of literary notation. Harris then argues that the proof of this knowledge is found in the Greek invention of "a literate game which consists, essentially, in superimposing the structure of a notation on the structure of texts".

Pangrammatic lipogram
A pangrammatic lipogram or lipogrammatic pangram uses every letter of the alphabet except one. An example omitting the letter E is:

A longer example is "Fate of Nassan", an anonymous poem dating from pre-1870, where each stanza is a lipogrammatic pangram using every letter of the alphabet except E.

Two other pangrammatic lipograms omitting only the letter E are:

Now focus your mind vigorously on this paragraph and on all its words. What’s so unusual about it? Don’t just zip through it quickly. Go through it slowly. Tax your brain as much as you can.

This is an unusual paragraph. It looks so ordinary and common. You would think that nothing is wrong with it, and, in fact, nothing is. But it is unusual. Can you find it? Just a quick think should do it. It is not taxing. You should find out without any hints. All that you must know to form your solution is right in front of you. I know if you work at it a bit, it will dawn on you. It’s so amazing and so obvious though you can still miss it.

The KJV Bible unintentionally contains two lipogrammatic panagrams: Ezra 7:21 lacks only J, and 1 Chronicles 12:40 lacks only Q.

Dropping letters
Another type of lipogram, which omits every instance of a letter from words that would otherwise contain it, as opposed to finding other words that do not contain the letter, was recorded by Willard R. Espy in 181 Missing O's, based on C. C. Bombaugh's univocalic 'Incontrovertible Facts'.

The above is also a conventional lipogram in omitting the letters A, E, I, and U.

American author James Thurber wrote The Wonderful O (1957), a fairy tale in which villains ban the letter 'O' from the use by the inhabitants of the island of Oooroo.

The book Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn (2001) is described as a "progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable": the plot of the story deals with a small country that begins to outlaw the use of various letters as the tiles of each letter fall off of a statue. As each letter is outlawed within the story, it is (for the most part) no longer used in the text of the novel. It is not purely lipogrammatic, however, because the outlawed letters do appear in the text proper from time to time (the characters being penalized with banishment for their use) and when the plot requires a search for pangram sentences, all twenty-six letters are obviously in use. Also, late in the text, the author begins using letters serving as homophones for the omitted letters (i.e., PH in place of an F, G in place of C), which may be considered cheating. At the beginning of each chapter, the alphabet appears along with a sentence, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog". As the letters are removed from the story, the alphabet, and sentence changes.

 * Chapter 1: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog".
 * Chapter 2: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXY* "The quick brown fox jumps over the la*y dog".
 * Chapter 3: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP*RSTUVWXY* "The *uick brown fox jumps over the la*y dog".
 * Chapter 4: ABCDEFGHI*KLMNOP*RSTUVWXY* "The *uick brown fox *umps over the la*y dog".
 * Chapter 5: ABCDEFGHI*KLMNOP*RSTUVW*Y* "The *uick brown fo* *umps over the la*y dog".

Other examples
In Rebeccah Giltrow's Twenty-Six Degrees, each chapter, narrated by a different character, deliberately excludes one of the twenty-six letters while using the other twenty-five at least once. And each of the twenty-six letters is excluded from one and only one chapter (for instance, one chapter excludes A, one chapter excludes B, one chapter excludes C, etc.).

Cipher and Poverty (The Book of Nothing), a book by Mike Schertzer (1998), is presented as the writings of "a prisoner whose world had been impoverished to a single utterance ... who can find me here in this silence". The poems that follow use only the vowels A, E, I, and O, and consonants C, D, F, H, L, M, N, R, S, T, and W, taken from that utterance.

Eunoia, a book written by Canadian author Christian Bök (2001), is lipogrammatic. The title uses every vowel once. Each of the five chapters in this book is a lipogram. The first chapter in this book uses only words containing the vowel "A" and no other vowel. The second chapter uses only words with no vowel but "E", and so on.

In December 2009, a collective of crime writers, Criminal Brief, published eight days of articles as a Christmas-themed lipogrammatic exercise.

In June 2013, finance author Alan Corey published "The Subversive Job Search", a non-fiction lipogram that omitted the letter "Z".

In the ninth episode of the ninth season of How I Met Your Mother, "Platonish", Lily and Robin challenge Barney to obtain a girl's phone number without using the letter E.

A website called the Found Poetry Review asked each of its readers (as part of a larger series of challenges) to compose a poem avoiding all letters in the title of the newspaper that had already been selected. For example, if the reader was using the Washington Post, then they could not use the letters A, G, H, I, N, O, P, S, T, and W.

Grant Maierhofer's Ebb, a novel published in 2023, by Kernpunkt Press, was written entirely without the letter "A".

Non-English examples
In Turkey the tradition of "Lebdeğmez atışma" or "Dudak değmez aşık atışması" (literally: two troubadours throwing verses at each other where lips do not touch each other) that is still practiced, a form of instantaneously improvised poetry sung by opposing Ashiks taking turns for artfully criticising each other with one verse at a time, usually by each placing a pin between their upper and lower lips so that the improvised song, accompanied by a Saz (played by the ashik himself), consists only of labial lipograms i.e. without words where lips must touch each other, effectively excluding the letters B, F, M, P and V from the text of the improvised songs.

The seventh- or eighth-century Dashakumaracharita by Daṇḍin includes a prominent lipogrammatic section at the beginning of the seventh chapter. Mantragupta is called upon to relate his adventures. However, during the previous night of vigorous lovemaking, his lips have been nibbled several times by his beloved; as a result, they are now swollen, making it painful for him to close them. Thus, throughout his narrative, he is compelled to refrain from using any labial consonants (प,फ,ब,भ,म).

In France, J. R. Ronden premièred la Pièce sans A (The Play without A) in 1816. Jacques Arago wrote in 1853 a version of his Voyage autour du monde (Voyage around the world), but without the letter a. Georges Perec published in 1969 La Disparition, a novel without the letter e, the most commonly used letter of the alphabet in French. Its published translation into English, A Void, by Gilbert Adair, won the Scott Moncrieff Prize in 1995.

In Sweden, a form of lipogram was developed out of necessity at the Linköping University. Because files were shared and moved between computer platforms where the internal representation of the characters Å, Ä, Ö, å, ä, and ö (all moderately common vowels) were different, the tradition to write comments in source code without using those characters emerged.

Zanzō ni Kuchibeni o (1989) by Yasutaka Tsutsui is a lipogrammatic novel in Japanese. The first chapter is written without the syllable あ, and usable syllables decrease as the story advances. In the last chapter, the last syllable, ん, vanishes and the story is closed.

Zero Degree (1991) by Charu Nivedita is a lipogrammatic novel in Tamil. The entire novel is written without the common word ஒரு (oru, "one", also used as the indefinite article), and there are no punctuation marks in the novel except dots. Later the novel was translated into English.

Russian 18th-century poet Gavriil Derzhavin avoided the harsh R sound (and the letter Р that represents it) in his poem "The Nightingale" to render the bird's singing.

The seventh-century Arab theologian Wasil ibn Ata gave a sermon without the letter rāʾ (R). However, it was the 19th-century Mufti of Damascus, Mahmud Hamza "al-Hamzawi" (d. 1887), who produced perhaps the most remarkable work of this genre with a complete commentary of the Quran (published in two volumes) without dotted letters in either the introduction or interlinear commentary. This is all the more remarkable because dotted letters make up about half of the Arabic alphabet.

In Hungarian language, the game "eszperente" is a game where people only speak using words that contain the vowel "e"; as this makes otherwise straightforward communication complicated, a lot of creative thinking is required in describing common terms in roundabout ways.

Non-literary lipograms
While a lipogram is usually limited to literary works, there are also chromatic lipograms, works of music that avoid the use of certain notes. Examples avoiding either the second, sixth, and tenth notes, or the third, seventh, and eleventh notes in a chromatic scale have been cited.

Reverse lipogram
A reverse lipogram, also known as an antilipo or transgram is a type of constrained writing where each word must contain a particular letter in the text.

title: Lipogram


text:
Werner von Siemens

Ernst Werner Siemens (von Siemens from 1888; ; ; 13 December 1816 – 6 December 1892) was a German electrical engineer, inventor and industrialist. Siemens's name has been adopted as the SI unit of electrical conductance, the siemens. He founded the electrical and telecommunications conglomerate Siemens and invented the electric tram, trolley bus, electric locomotive and electric elevator.

Early years
Ernst Werner Siemens was born in Lenthe, today part of Gehrden, near Hannover, in the Kingdom of Hanover in the German Confederation, the fourth child (of fourteen) of a tenant farmer of the Siemens family, an old family of Goslar, documented since 1384. He was a brother of Carl Heinrich von Siemens and Carl Wilhelm Siemens, sons of Christian Ferdinand Siemens (31 July 1787 – 16 January 1840) and wife Eleonore Deichmann (1792 – 8 July 1839).

Middle years
After finishing school, Siemens intended to study at the Bauakademie Berlin. However, since his family was highly indebted and thus could not afford to pay the tuition fees, he chose to join the Prussian Military Academy's School of Artillery and Engineering, between the years 1835–1838, instead, where he received his officers training. Siemens was thought of as a good soldier, receiving various medals, and contributing to the invention of electrically-charged sea mines, which were used to combat a Danish blockade of Kiel.

Upon returning home from war, he chose to work on perfecting technologies that had already been established and eventually became known worldwide for his advances in various technologies. In 1843 he sold the rights to his first invention to Elkington of Birmingham. Siemens invented a telegraph that used a needle to point to the right letter, instead of using Morse code. Based on this invention, he founded the company Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske on 1 October 1847, with the company opening a workshop on 12 October.

The company was internationalised soon after its founding. One brother of Werner represented him in England (Sir William Siemens) and another in St. Petersburg, Russia (Carl von Siemens), each earning recognition. Following his industrial career, he was ennobled in 1888, becoming Werner von Siemens. He retired from his company in 1890 and died in 1892 in Berlin.

The company, reorganized as Siemens & Halske AG, Siemens-Schuckertwerke and – since 1966 – Siemens AG was later led by his brother Carl, his sons Arnold, Wilhelm, and Carl Friedrich, his grandsons Hermann and Ernst and his great-grandson Peter von Siemens. Siemens AG is one of the largest electrotechnological firms in the world. The von Siemens family still owns 6% of the company shares (as of 2013) and holds a seat on the supervisory board, being the largest shareholder.

Later years
Apart from the pointer telegraph, Siemens made sufficient contributions to the development of electrical engineering that he became known as the founding father of the discipline in Germany. He built the world's first electric elevator in 1880. His company produced the tubes with which Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen investigated x-rays. He claimed invention of the dynamo although others invented it earlier. On 14 December 1877 he received German patent No. 2355 for an electromechanical "dynamic" or moving-coil transducer, which was adapted by A. L. Thuras and E. C. Wente for the Bell System in the late 1920s for use as a loudspeaker. Wente's adaptation was issued in 1929.

In May 1881, Siemens & Halske inaugurated the world's first electric tram service, in the Berlin suburb of Groß-Lichterfelde. Siemens is also the father of the trolleybus, which he initially tried and tested on 29 April 1882, using his "Elektromote".

Personal life
He was married twice: first in 1852 to Mathilde Drumann (died 1 July 1867), the daughter of the historian Wilhelm Drumann; second in 1869 to his relative Antonie Siemens (1840–1900). His children from first marriage were Arnold von Siemens and Georg Wilhelm von Siemens, and his children from second marriage were Hertha von Siemens (1870 – 5 January 1939), married in 1899 to Carl Dietrich Harries, and Carl Friedrich von Siemens.

Siemens was an advocate of social democracy, and he hoped that industrial development would not be used in favour of capitalism, stating:

"A number of great factories in the hands of rich capitalists, in which "slaves of work" drag out their miserable existence, is not, therefore, the goal of the development of the age of natural science, but a return to individual labour, or where the nature of things demands it, the carrying on of common workshops by unions of workmen, who will receive a sound basis only through the general extension of knowledge and civilization, and through the possibility of obtaining cheaper capital."

He also rejected the claim that science leads to materialism, stating instead:

"Equally unfounded is the complaint that the study of science and the technical application of the forces of nature gives to mankind a thoroughly material direction, makes them proud of their knowledge and power, and alienates ideal endeavours. The deeper we penetrate into the harmonious action of natural forces regulated by eternal unalterable laws, and yet so thickly veiled from our complete comprehension, the more we feel on the contrary moved to humble modesty, the smaller appears to us the extent of our knowledge, the more active is our endeavour to draw more from the inexhaustible fountain of knowledge, and understanding, and the higher rises our admiration of the endless wisdom which ordains and penetrates the whole creation."

Commemoration
Werner von Siemens' portrait appeared on the banknote issued by the Reichsbank from 1929 until 1939. Printing ceased in 1939 but the note remained in circulation until the issue of the Deutsche Mark on 21 June 1948.

In 1923, German botanist Ignatz Urban published Siemensia, which is a monotypic genus of flowering plant from Cuba belonging to the family Rubiaceae and was named in honor of Werner von Siemens.

U.S. Patents

 * — Electric railway (21 July 1885)
 * — Electric railway (20 April 1886)
 * — Electric meter (19 November 1889)
 * — Electric meter (20 May 1890)
 * — Electric railway (22 May 1894)
 * — Method of and apparatus for extracting gold from its ores (22 March 1898)

title: Werner von Siemens


text:
Grylloblattidae

Grylloblattidae, commonly known as the icebugs or ice crawlers, is a family of extremophile (psychrophile) and wingless insects that live in the cold on top of mountains and the edges of glaciers. It is the only member of Grylloblattodea, which is generally considered an order. Alternatively, Grylloblattodea, along with Mantophasmatodea (rock crawlers), have been ranked as suborders of the order Notoptera. Grylloblattids are wingless insects mostly less than 3 cm long, with a head resembling that of a cockroach, with long antennae and having elongated cerci arising from the tip of their abdomen. They cannot tolerate warmth (most species will die at 10 °C) and many species have small distribution ranges.

Overview
Grylloblattids, ice crawlers or icebugs puzzled the scientists who discovered them in 1914, E.M. Walker and T.B. Kurata; the first species named was Grylloblatta campodeiformis, which means "cricket-cockroach shaped like a Campodea" (a kind of two-pronged bristletail). Most are nocturnal and appear to feed on detritus. They have long antennae (23–45 segments) and long cerci (5–8 segments), but no wings. Their eyes are either missing or reduced and they have no ocelli (simple eyes). Their closest living relatives are the recently discovered Mantophasmatodea. Most species are less than 3 cm long, the largest being Namkungia magnus.

The family has its own order, Grylloblattodea (sometimes considered a suborder of Notoptera ). It contains 5 genera and about 34 extant species.

Most species have restricted distributions and small populations and with increased warming their habitats are threatened, making them endangered. In North America some species like Grylloblatta barberi and G. oregonensis are known from single sites.

Habitat and distribution
Grylloblattodea are nocturnal extremophiles typically found in leaf litter and under stones in extremely cold environments, usually at higher elevations. They are known to inhabit cold temperate forests to glaciers and the edges of ice sheets. Their optimal living temperature is between 1 - 4 C. They can be killed at colder temperatures due to ice formation in the body, so when the temperature drops below their optimal range they survive by living under snow pack near the soil. They have a very narrow range of temperatures that they prefer and cannot withstand high temperatures; many species are killed when the temperature rises about 5 °C above their optimal temperature. They move in response to the seasons so as to maintain an optimal temperature in their foraging habitat.

Grylloblattidae are patchily distributed in glaciers, caves, montane environments, and occasionally also lower-elevation forests in western North America, East Asia (Korea and Japan), Central Asia (Siberia, China, and Kazakhstan). They are predicted to occur in several other mountain chains in Asia, including parts of the Himalayas.

Diet
They are omnivorous, but feed primarily on dead arthropods and carrion. When arthropod carcasses are scarce, they subsist on plant material.

Evolution
Grylloblattidae is generally thought to have emerged from within the "Grylloblattida", a poorly defined group of extinct winged insects that first appeared in the Late Carboniferous, over 300 million years ago. The winged Aristovia from the mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber of Myanmar, around 100 million years ago is thought to be closely related to modern Grylloblattidae due to its very similar mouthparts.

Taxonomy
List of Grylloblattodea genera and species along with their type localities:

 * Galloisiana Caudell 1924 – Far East Asia
 * Galloisiana chujoi Gurney 1961 – type locality: Oninoiwaya Cave, Japan
 * Galloisiana kiyosawai Asahina 1959 – type locality: Hirayu-Onsen, Japan
 * Galloisiana kosuensis Namkung 1974 – type locality: Gosu Cave, South Korea
 * Galloisiana nipponensis (Caudell & King 1924) – type locality: Lake Chūzenji, Japan
 * Galloisiana notabilis (Silvestri 1927) – type locality: Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan
 * Galloisiana odaesanensis Kim & Lee 2007 – type locality: Mount Odae, South Korea
 * Galloisiana olgae Vrsansky & Storozhenko 2001 – type locality: Mount Olga, Russia
 * Galloisiana sinensis Wang 1987 – type locality: Changbaishan, Jilin, PR China
 * Galloisiana sofiae Szeptycki 1987 – type locality: Mount Myoyang, South Korea
 * Galloisiana ussuriensis Storozhenko 1988 – type locality: Primorsky Krai, Russia
 * Galloisiana yezoensis Asahina 1961 – type locality: Miyazaki-Toge, Japan
 * Galloisiana yuasai Asahina 1959 – type locality: Tokugo-Toge, Japan
 * Grylloblatta Walker 1914 – western North America
 * Grylloblatta barberi Caudell 1924 – type locality: Sunny Side Mine, Mount Lassen area, California, USA
 * Grylloblatta bifratrilecta Gurney 1953 – type locality: Sonora Pass, California, USA
 * Grylloblatta campodeiformis Walker 1914 – type locality: Sulphur Mountain, Alberta, Canada
 * Grylloblatta chandleri Kamp 1963 – type locality: Eagle Lake, California, USA
 * Grylloblatta chintimini Marshall & Lytle 2015 – type locality: Marys Peak, Oregon, USA
 * Grylloblatta chirurgica Gurney 1961 – type locality: Ape Cave, Washington, USA
 * Grylloblatta gurneyi Kamp 1963 – type locality: Lava Beds National Monument, California, USA
 * Grylloblatta marmoreus Schoville 2012 – type locality: Marble Mountains, California, USA
 * Grylloblatta newberryensis Marshall & Lytle 2015 – type locality: Newberry Volcano, Oregon, USA
 * Grylloblatta oregonensis Schoville 2012 – type locality: Oregon Caves National Monument, USA
 * Grylloblatta rothi Gurney 1953 – type locality: Happy Valley, Deschutes County, Oregon, USA
 * Grylloblatta scudderi Kamp 1979 – type locality: Mount Paul, Alberta, Canada
 * Grylloblatta sculleni Gurney 1937 – type locality: Scott Camp, Deschutes County, Oregon, USA
 * Grylloblatta siskiyouensis Schoville 2012 – type locality: Oregon Caves National Monument, USA
 * Grylloblatta washoa Gurney 1961 – type locality: Echo Summit, California, USA
 * Grylloblattella Storozhenko 1988 – Central Asia
 * Grylloblattella cheni Bai, Wang & Yang 2010 – type locality: Ake Kule Lake, Xinjiang, China
 * Grylloblattella pravdini (Storozhenko & Oliger 1984) – type locality: Teletskoye Lake, Russia
 * Grylloblattella sayanensis Storozhenko 1996 – type locality: Sambyl Pass, Russia
 * Grylloblattina Bey-Bienko 1951 – Far East Asia
 * Grylloblattina djakonovi Bey-Bienko 1951
 * Namkungia Storozhenko & Park 2002 – Korea
 * Namkungia biryongensis (Namkung 1974) – type locality: Biryong Cave, South Korea
 * Namkungia magna (Namkung 1986) – type locality: Balgudeok Cave, South Korea

In total, there are 33 extant species and 5 extant genera described as of 2015.

title: Grylloblattidae


text:
Kevin Roche

Eamonn Kevin Roche (June 14, 1922 – March 1, 2019) was an Irish-born American Pritzker Prize-winning architect. He was responsible for the design/master planning for over 200 built projects in both the U.S. and abroad. These projects include eight museums, 38 corporate headquarters, seven research facilities, performing arts centers, theaters, and campus buildings for six universities. In 1967 he created the master plan for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and thereafter designed all of the new wings and installation of many collections including the reopened American and Islamic wings.

Born in Dublin and a graduate from University College Dublin, Roche went to the United States to study with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology. In the U.S., he became the principal designer for Eero Saarinen, and opened his own architectural firm in 1967.

Among other awards, Roche received the Pritzker in 1982, the Gold Medal Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1990, and the AIA Gold Medal in 1993.

Biography
Born in Dublin, but raised in Mitchelstown, County Cork, Roche attended Rockwell College and graduated from University College Dublin in 1945. He then worked with Michael Scott from 1945 to 1946. From summer to fall of 1946, he worked with Maxwell Fry in London. In 1947, he applied for graduate studies at Harvard, Yale, and the Illinois Institute of Technology and was accepted at all three institutions, and left Ireland in 1948 to study under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

In 1949, he worked at the planning office for the United Nations Headquarters building in New York City. In 1950, he joined the firm of Eero Saarinen and Associates. His future partner, John Dinkeloo (1918-1991), joined the firm in 1951 and this was also where Roche met his wife Jane. In 1954, he became the Principal Design Associate to Saarinen and assisted him on all projects from that time until Saarinen's death in September 1961.

In 1966, Roche and Dinkeloo formed Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates and completed Saarinen's projects. They completed 12 major unfinished Saarinen builds, including some of Saarinen's best-known work: the Gateway Arch, the expressionistic TWA Flight Center at JFK International Airport in New York City, Dulles International Airport outside Washington, DC, the strictly modern John Deere Headquarters in Moline, Illinois, and the CBS Headquarters building in New York City.

Following this, Roche and Dinkeloo's first major commission was the Oakland Museum of California, a complex for the art, natural history, and cultural history of California with a design featuring interrelated terraces and roof gardens. The city was planning a monumental building to house natural history, technology, and art, and Roche provided a unique concept: a building that is a series of low-level concrete structures covering a four block area, on three levels, the terrace of each level forming the roof of the one below, i.e. a museum (in three sections) with a park on its roof. This kind of innovative solution went on to become Roche's trademark.

This project was followed by the equally highly acclaimed Ford Foundation Building in New York City, considered the first large-scale architectural building in the U.S. to devote a substantial portion of its space to horticultural pursuits. Its famous atrium was designed with the notion of having urban green-space accessible to all and is an early example of the application of environmental psychology in architecture. The building was recognized in 1968 by Architectural Record as "a new kind of urban space".

The acclaim that greeted the Oakland Museum and Ford Foundation earned Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates a ranking at the top of their profession. Shortly afterward they began a 40-year association with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, for which they did extensive remodeling and built many extensions to house new galleries including the one containing the Egyptian Temple of Dendur. Other high-profile commissions for the firm came from clients as varied as Wesleyan University, the United Nations, Cummins Engines, Union Carbide, The United States Post Office, and the Knights of Columbus.

In 1982, Kevin Roche became one of the first recipients of the Pritzker Prize, generally regarded as architecture's equivalent to the Nobel prize. Following this accolade, Roche's practice went global, receiving commissions for buildings in Paris, Madrid, Singapore, and Tokyo. He completed his first and only Irish project, The Convention Centre Dublin, in 2010.

Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates has designed numerous corporate headquarters, office buildings, banks, museums, art centers, and even part of the Bronx Zoo. Roche served as a trustee of the American Academy in Rome, president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a member of the National Academy of Design, and a member of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.

Roche died on March 1, 2019, at his home in Guilford, Connecticut, aged 96.

Prizes and awards
The work of Kevin Roche has been the subject of special exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Architectural Association of Ireland in Dublin, and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. A 2012 exhibition, Kevin Roche: Architecture as Environment, opened at the Yale School of Architecture in New Haven, Connecticut, and has been viewed at The Museum of the City of New York, the Building Museum in Washington, and the University of Toronto.

In addition to the Pritzker Prize, Roche was the recipient of numerous honors and awards including the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal Award for Architecture, and the French Academie d'Architecture Grand Gold Medal.

Film
A feature documentary called Kevin Roche: The Quiet Architect was released in 2017. It was directed by Irish filmmaker (and former architecture student) Mark Noonan.

Buildings

 * 1966 – Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California
 * 1968 – The Ford Foundation Building, New York, New York
 * 1969 – Administration, Student Union & Physical Education Buildings, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York
 * 1969 – The Knights of Columbus Building Headquarters, New Haven, Connecticut
 * 1969 – United States Post Office, Columbus, Indiana
 * 1969 – Aetna Life and Casualty Company Computer Headquarters, Hartford, Connecticut
 * 1971 – Power Center for the Performing Arts, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
 * 1972 – Cummins Inc. Irwin Office Building Arcade, Columbus, Indiana
 * 1972 - New Haven Coliseum, New Haven, Connecticut, (demolished 2002)
 * 1973 – Center for the Arts, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut
 * 1973 – Cummins Midrange Engine Plant, Columbus, Indiana
 * 1974 – Fine Arts Center, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts
 * 1974 – Worcester County National Bank, Worcester, Massachusetts
 * 1972 – The Pyramids, College Life Insurance Company of America headquarters, Indianapolis, Indiana
 * 1978 – John Deere World Headquarters, West Office Building, Moline, Illinois
 * 1979 – Denver Performing Arts Complex, Denver, Colorado
 * 1982 – The Corporate Center, Danbury, Connecticut (originally the Union Carbide Corporate Center)
 * 1982 – Moudy Visual Arts and Communication Building, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas
 * 1983 – 2 United Nations Plaza, New York, New York
 * 1983 – General Foods Corporate Headquarters, Ryebrook, New York
 * 1983 – Cummins Corporate Office Building, Columbus, Indiana
 * 1985 – Cummins Engine Company Corporate Headquarters, Columbus, Indiana
 * 1985 – DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, Williamsburg, Virginia
 * 1986 – Conoco Inc. Petroleum Headquarters, Houston, Texas
 * 1988 – Central Park Zoo, New York, New York
 * 1988 – Bouygues World Headquarters, Saint-Quentin-Yvelines, France
 * 1989 – Leo Burnett Building Company Headquarters, Chicago, Illinois
 * 1990 – 750 7th Avenue, New York, New York
 * 1990 – Metropolitano Office Building, Madrid, Spain
 * 1992 – J. P. Morgan Headquarters, New York, New York
 * 1993 – Corning Incorporated Corporate Headquarters, Corning, New York
 * 1993 – Merck & Co. Inc. Headquarters, Whitehouse Station, New Jersey
 * 1993 – NationsBank Building (now Bank of America Plaza), Atlanta, Georgia
 * 1993 – UC Santa Cruz Scotts Valley Center, Scotts Valley, California
 * 1993 – Tanjong and Binariang Headquarters/Menara Maxis, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
 * 1994 – Pontiac Marina Millenia Tower and Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Singapore
 * 1995 – Dai-ichi Life Headquarters/ Norinchukin Bank Headquarters, DN Tower 21, Tokyo, Japan
 * 1996 – Cummins Columbus Engine Plant Expansion, Columbus, Indiana
 * 1997 – Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts
 * 1997 – Shiodome City Center, Tokyo, Japan
 * 1997 – Helen and Martin Kimmel Center for University Life/ Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, New York University, New York, New York
 * 1997 – Lucent Technologies, Lisle, IL/Naperville, Illinois
 * 1997 – Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York, New York
 * 2000 – Ciudad Grupo Santander, Madrid, Spain
 * 2001 – Securities and Exchange Commission Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
 * 2002 – Bouygues SA Holding Company Headquarters, Paris, France
 * 2003 – 1101 New York Avenue, Washington, D.C.
 * 2003 – Renovation to Greek and Roman Court at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York
 * 2005 – Lafayette Tower, Washington, D.C.
 * 2007 – Renovation to American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York
 * 2008 – Renovation to American Wing at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York
 * 2009 – David S. Ingalls Rink Restoration and Addition, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
 * 2010 – Convention Centre Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
 * 2011 – Renovation to Islamic Wing at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York

Awards and honors
Roche was the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including:
 * Pritzker Prize
 * American Institute of Architects – AIA Gold Medal
 * American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medals – Gold Medal Award for Architecture
 * Academie d'Architecture – Grand Gold Medal
 * Total Design Award, American Society of Interior Designers
 * Medal of Honor, New York Chapter of the AIA
 * American Institute of Architects Twenty-five Year Award
 * Classical America's Arthur Ross Award
 * Brendan Gill Prize of the Municipal Art Society of New York
 * R. S. Reynolds Memorial Award
 * New York State Award
 * California Governor's Award for Excellence in Design
 * Albert S. Bard First Honor Awards, City Club of New York
 * Brandeis University Creative Arts Award in Architecture
 * Brunner Award of the American Institute of Art and Letters
 * New York Chapter American Institute of Architects Award

Honorary Degrees:
 * Wesleyan University, Doctorate of Fine Arts
 * National University of Ireland, Doctorate of Fine Arts
 * Albertus Magnus College, Doctorate of Fine Arts
 * Iona College, Doctorate of Fine Arts
 * Yale University, Doctorate of Fine Arts

title: Kevin Roche


text:
SOM (architectural firm)

SOM, previously Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, is a Chicago-based architectural, urban planning, and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings. In 1939, they were joined by engineer John O. Merrill. The firm opened its second office, in New York City, in 1937 and has since expanded, with offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., London, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seattle, and Dubai.

The firm's notable current work includes the new headquarters for The Walt Disney Company, the global headquarters for Citigroup, Moynihan Train Hall and the expanded Penn Station complex, and the restoration and renovation of the Waldorf Astoria in New York City; airport projects at O'Hare International Airport, Kansas City International Airport, and Kempegowda International Airport; urban master plans for the Charenton-Bercy district in Paris, New Covent Garden in London, Treasure Island in San Francisco, the East Riverfront in Detroit; P.S. 62, the first net-zero-energy school in New York City; and the design of the Moon Village, a concept for the first permanent lunar settlement, developed with the European Space Agency and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Notable for its role as a pioneer of modernist architecture in America and for its groundbreaking work in skyscraper design and construction, SOM has designed some of the world's most significant architectural and urban projects including several of the tallest buildings in the world: John Hancock Center (1969, second tallest in the world when built), Willis Tower (1973, tallest in the world for over twenty years), One World Trade Center (2014, currently the seventh tallest in the world), and Burj Khalifa (2010, currently the world's tallest building).

SOM's multidisciplinary practice works across a range of scales and project types, providing services in architecture, building services/MEP engineering, digital design, graphics, interior design, structural engineering, civil engineering, sustainable design and urban design & planning.

20th century
The firm's first influential project was Lever House, completed in 1952 to become the first International Style office building in New York City. Constructed of glass and steel at a time when Park Avenue was lined with masonry buildings, Lever House introduced a modernist aesthetic that embodied the spirit of the times and influenced an entire generation of high-rise construction.

In 1962, architectural historian Reyner Banham wrote that, "It gave architectural expression to an age just as the age was being born ... Lever House was an uncontrollable success, imitated and sometimes understood all over the Americanized world, and one of the sights of New York".

In the 1970s, SOM pioneered a new era of skyscraper design with its work in Chicago, including the John Hancock Center (completed 1970) and Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower), which became the world's tallest structure upon its completion in 1973 and remained so for more than 20 years. Both towers are the result of collaboration between architect Bruce Graham and engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan, who is often considered to be the greatest structural engineer of the 20th century. Khan invented a tubular framing system that made it possible to build higher than ever before. This system has been adapted and is still used today for some of the world's most recent tallest buildings, including the 828-meter-tall Burj Khalifa, designed by SOM and completed in 2010.

In the 1960s and 1970s, SOM was an early leader in computer-aided design, developing in-house digital tools that preceded the CAD systems used widely today. This work quickly proved valuable in the generation of structural analysis tools that were embraced by Fazlur Khan and his engineering team, aiding the design of projects such as the John Hancock Center.

The activity of an experimental research group at SOM, known as the Computer Group, exemplifies a particularly productive effort within the firm to incorporate technological research into its practice. Through the 1970s and 1980s, members of the relatively small, dedicated group pushed to integrate the computer's enhanced data-storing and analytical abilities into various phases of the design process. Through these initiatives, SOM was able to identify the potential of the computer to not only expedite necessary calculations but also introduce new ways of representing and sharing information. Just as structural engineering came to be seen early on at SOM as a means of generating rather than simply realizing architectural ideas, with concerted effort, computers gained credence at the firm, and eventually throughout the industry, as a catalyst for architectural innovation.

In 1980, an in-house team at SOM created Architecture Engineering Systems, a computer program that was used to study complex structural systems and energy demands. This program is regarded as a precursor to the array of building information modeling (BIM) tools now used by the profession.

SOM's projects have featured works of art by significant artists. In many cases, the firm's architects and engineers played a role in commissioning, engineering, and installing the artworks—such as with the Chicago Picasso, a 50-foot-tall steel sculpture in the city's civic center. Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, Isamu Noguchi, Harry Bertoia, Richard Lippold, Jean Dubuffet and Chryssa are among the artists whose work has been a part of SOM projects. More recently, SOM's architects and engineers have collaborated with artists such as James Turrell, Janet Echelman, Iñigo Manglano–Ovalle, James Carpenter, and Jaume Plensa.

In 1982, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated Lever House an official landmark.

In 1953, the firm completed the Manufacturers Trust Company Building in New York City, the first international style bank building in the United States, Seven years later, in 1960, the firm completed Pepsi-Cola World Headquarters.

Architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock called the Pepsi building "the ultimate in refinement of proportion and elegance of materials," and New York Times critic Ada Louise Huxtable placed it "at the top of the list, with Seagram and Lever House, of the city's few modern landmarks."

The following year, in 1961, the firm completied One Chase Manhattan Plaza, which is now 28 Liberty Street, the first International Style building to rise in New York City's Financial District. The project is noted for helping to turn the tide of a corporate exodus to Midtown Manhattan and the suburbs and reasserted Lower Manhattan as a viable business district after years of decline. SOM's design for 28 Liberty Street also transformed the crowded streetscape of the Financial District by creating a plaza surrounding the tower, a novel concept that would be adapted in many future projects.

In Colorado Springs, Colorado, SOM planned a campus for the United States Air Force Academy. Built between 1958 and 1968, the campus broke from the traditions of West Point and Annapolis to become the first U.S. military academy designed in the modern style. The centerpiece of the campus is the Cadet Chapel, designed by architect Walter Netsch. The American Institute of Architects awarded the building with its prestigious Twenty-five Year Award, conferred onto "a building that has set a precedent for the last 25 to 35 years and continues to set standards of excellence for its architectural design and significance".

In 1969, SOM founder Nathaniel Owings wrote, "Civilizations leave marks on the Earth by which they are known and judged. In large measure, the nature of their immortality is gauged by how well their builders made peace with the environment." (source: Nathaniel Owings, "The American Aesthetic," Harper & Row, 1969) This ethos has shaped the firm's journey into sustainable practices. An early example is the corporate headquarters it designed for timberland company Weyerhaeuser, completed in 1971, which has been called the "original green building" not only for its integration into the surrounding landscape, but also for its use of efficient building systems.

21st century
In 2007, the firm completed a large-scale sustainable architecture project for the U.S. Census Bureau, the first federal office building to receive LEED certification. Like Weyerhaeuser, the design of the campus works in concert with its natural surroundings and incorporates a range of design strategies to reduce its environmental impact.

In 2015, SOM completed the first net-zero-energy school building in New York City and one of the first worldwide. The Kathleen Grimm School for Leadership and Sustainability at Sandy Ground, Staten Island, has been awarded for its sustainability performance by organizations, including the American Institute of Architects, the [>Municipal Art Society]], and the Urban Land Institute. SOM has been recognized for its research and experimentation with new energy-saving and carbon-reducing technologies, inckuding a timber tower and a modified concrete slab design.

People
SOM is structured as a partnership. The current partners and consulting partners are: Mustafa Abadan, William Baker, Thomas Behr, Keith Boswell, Carrie Byles, Larry Chien, Leo Chow, Brant Coletta, Chris Cooper, Paul Danna, Michael Duncan, Scott Duncan, Laura Ettelman, Xuan Fu, T.J. Gottesdiener, Gary Haney, Craig Hartman, Kent Jackson, Colin Koop, Kenneth Lewis, Mark Sarkisian, Adam Semel, Jonathan Stein, and Douglas Voigt.

Founders and notable architects
Gordon Bunshaft, who thrived as a design leader at SOM for more than 40 years, received the profession's highest honor, the Pritzker Architecture Prize, in 1988. Notable architects who are associated with SOM include: T. J. Gottesdiener, Edward Charles Bassett, Natalie de Blois, Gordon Bunshaft,  David Childs,  Robert Diamant, Philip Enquist, Myron Goldsmith,  Bruce Graham,  Gary Haney, Craig W. Hartman, Gertrude Kerbis, Fazlur Rahman Khan. Lucien Lagrange, Walter Netsch, Larry Oltmanns, Eszter Pécsi, Brigitte Peterhans,  Norma Merrick Sklarek, Adrian Smith, and Marilyn Jordan Taylor

Women at SOM
Architect Sally Harkness, a founding partner at The Architects Collaborative in 1947, was interviewed at the firm during World War II along with her husband Chip Harkness, but only her husband received a job offer. In an interview later in life, Sally Harkness explained that she was told the firm did not believe in hiring women. Norma Merrick Sklarek, an African-American, was hired by SOM in 1955 after having been previously rejected by 19 other firms. She stayed there for 5 years, eventually starting her own firm. Patricia Weston Swan spent her 30-year career with SOM including many leadership roles but never achieved partner status, perceived by a colleague in the Denver officer as evidence of the "glass ceiling" that was in place at that time at SOM

When Julia Murphy, AIA joined SOM in 2008 there were no women partners and only a handful of directors. To attempt to address this imbalance, in 2010 she relaunched the Women's Initiative at SOM which had previously been active between 2002 and 2004.

The year 2020 marked a change in which three female partners, Carrie Byles, Xuan Fu, and Laura Ettelman were named to the executive committee of the 1250-person firm.

SOM Foundation
The SOM Foundation was first established in 1979 with the mission to support and cultivate emerging design leaders by granting awards to outstanding students of architecture, design, urban design, and engineering. Many winners of SOM Foundation awards have gone on to distinguish themselves in professional and academic careers. Past winners include Marion Weiss (1982), Werner Sobek (1983), Himanshu Parikh (1985), Santiago Calatrava (1988), and Joshua Ramus (1995). The SOM Foundation continues to support emerging design leaders and interdisciplinary research with five annual awards granted to students from the United States, the United Kingdom, and China.

Awards
Throughout its history, SOM has been recognized with more than 2000 awards for quality and innovation. In November of 1990, SOM was placed on the cover of Interior Design Magazine for The Top Ten, Winner Of IBA. In 1996 and 1962, SOM received the Architecture Firm Award from the American Institute of Architects, which recognizes the design work of an entire firm. SOM is the only firm to have received this honor twice. In August 2009 SOM received four of 13 available R+D Awards from Architect Magazine. In addition, a collaboration between SOM and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, The Center for Architecture, Science and Ecology, was honored with a fifth award.

Urban design and planning
Since the firm's founding, SOM has led large-scale urban design and planning projects. Many of these projects have had a lasting role in the development of cities and urban areas in America and the world, including London, Chicago, New York City, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Denver, and Portland, Oregon. SOM's City Design practice has made influential contributions to urban design approaches such as transit-oriented development, overbuild strategies and sustainable urbanism. In 1942, SOM was hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a highly confidential project: the planning of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. By 1945, the town was home to 75,000 people. The work at Oak Ridge prepared SOM to take on the large-scale architectural and planning projects that would define the postwar era.

For more than 20 years, SOM was involved in the development of a master plan for the National Mall in Washington, D.C. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy appointed Nathaniel Owings as chair of the Pennsylvania Avenue redesign council, and the resulting 1966 Washington Mall Master Plan laid the framework for a dynamic, inviting, and pedestrian-friendly place. A second master plan developed in 1973, envisioned the construction of major cultural facilities, including the National Air and Space Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden. In Baltimore in the 1960s, SOM played a pivotal role in preventing the destruction of the city's historic districts and Inner Harbor to make way for the planned construction of an elevated highway. As the chair of a team to develop an alternate plan, Nathaniel Owings convinced the Federal Highway Administration to sign off on a plan to reroute the highway. It was eventually built around the harbor and the historic Federal Hill district, saving these irreplaceable neighborhoods.

In the 1970s, SOM collaborated with landscape architect Lawrence Halprin to plan and design the Portland Transit Mall. The goals were to revitalize the Oregon city's downtown area, to encourage the use of mass transit, and create walkable streets. The Transit Mall helped to change the perception of downtown Portland. As one of the first projects of its kind in the United States, it helped to usher in an era of streetscape design that prioritizes people. Another important commission in the 1970s was as the lead design firm for the Boston Transportation Planning Review, a metropolitan-wide re-design of Boston's entire transit and roadway infrastructure.

Beginning in the 1980s, SOM planned the design and construction of Canary Wharf in London. Intended to accommodate a flourishing financial sector and revitalize London's former Docklands, the plan included more than 20 building sites and a host of public spaces and amenities. The plan also provided for a robust transportation network including a light rail station that connects to the London Underground. The massive scale of the project led to the opening of SOM's London office in 1986. The firm's work at Canary Wharf continued into the new millennium, with the completion of Five Canada Square in 2002. In central London, the opportunity to build above rail lines near Liverpool Street Station spurred the construction of Broadgate, a new business district. SOM devised the master plan, and over three decades designed several of the site's 14 buildings. In order to build high-rise structures atop one of the city's busiest stations and its railyard, SOM's structural engineering team devised a deck over the tracks to allow for various building configurations on top. Exchange House, completed in 1990, is a building that acts as a bridge spanning the tracks. In 2008, Broadgate Tower, the district's tallest building, was completed. SOM also designed public space enhancements for the area.

SOM designed the master plan for Chicago's Millennium Park, which opened in 2004 and has become one of the city's most visited attractions. Constructed above bus lanes, parking garages, and a rail yard, Millennium Park can be considered the world's largest roof garden. Below the great lawn, two new levels of parking were built, bus stops were added, and rail stations were renovated and expanded, including Millennium Station. The project revitalized a formerly blighted downtown site and marked the completion of Chicago planner Daniel Burnham's 100-year vision for the area.

In Denver, SOM was commissioned to expand and transform the city's historic Union Station into a major regional hub. 20 acres of former rail yards have been converted into a transit-oriented urban district that orchestrates light rail, pedestrian, bicycle, and bus routes, as well as commuter and intercity rail. Completed in 2014, the project has spurred more than $3.5 billion worth of private investment in the surrounding district.

Structural engineering
The earliest SOM engineer was John O. Merrill. Fazlur Khan, another engineer at SOM, is best known for his design and construction of the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower), and John Hancock Center and for his designs of structural systems that remain fundamental to all high-rise skyscrapers. Indeed, Khan is responsible for developing the algorithms that made the Hancock building and many subsequent skyscrapers possible. Another notable SOM engineer is Bill Baker, who is best known as the engineer of Burj Khalifa (Dubai, 2010), the world's tallest man-made structure. To support the tower's record heights and slim footprint, he developed the "buttressed core" structural system, consisting of a hexagonal core reinforced by three buttresses that form a Y shape.

Interior design
Davis Allen, a pioneer in corporate interior design, had a forty-year tenure at SOM. The designer of the iconic Andover chair, Allen was an institution in "the profession he helped to establish—the total design of the interior corporate environment with furniture, art, and functional and decorative objects integrated into a comprehensively planned space."

Notable projects

 * Milan Olympic Village, Milan, Italy (ongoing)
 * Newark Liberty International Airport, Newark, New Jersey (ongoing)
 * Karlatornet, Gothenburg, Sweden (ongoing) (clear 2024)
 * Greenland Shandong International Financial Center, Jinan, China (ongoing)
 * Belgrade Tower, Belgrade, Serbia 2023
 * Busan Lotte Town Tower, Busan, South Korea (ongoing)
 * One Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand (ongoing)
 * Greenland Centre, Xi'an, China (ongoing)
 * Burj Jumeirah, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (ongoing)
 * Taipei Twin Towers, Taipei, Taiwan (ongoing)
 * Moynihan Train Hall, New York City, 2020
 * United Nations Office at Geneva, renovation, 2020
 * Haeundae LCT The Sharp, Busan, South Korea, 2019
 * Guoco Tower, Singapore, 2018
 * The Stratford / Manhattan Loft Gardens, London, England, 2018
 * Barnard College, The Milstein Center, New York City, 2018
 * University of Connecticut, Innovation Partnership Building, Storrs, Connecticut, 2018
 * NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium, 2017
 * Cornell Tech Master Plan, New York City,
 * Chronicle Tower, London, 2016
 * U.S. Air Force Academy, Center for Character and Leadership Development, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 2016
 * Chicago Public Library, Chinatown Branch, Chicago, Illinois, 2015
 * 350 Mission Street, San Francisco, 2015
 * One World Trade Center, New York City, 2014
 * Denver Union Station, Denver, Colorado, 2014
 * Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport – Terminal 2, Mumbai, India, 2014
 * Cayan Tower – Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 2013
 * University Center, The New School, New York City, 2013
 * Pearl River Tower, Guangzhou, China, 2013
 * Al Hamra Tower, Kuwait City, Kuwait, 2011
 * John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York City, 2011
 * Burj Khalifa, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 2010
 * Zifeng Tower, Nanjing, China, 2010
 * Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C., 2008
 * Cathedral of Christ the Light, Oakland, California, 2008
 * U.S. Embassy, Beijing, China, 2008
 * Toronto Pearson International Airport, Terminal 1, 2008
 * Changi International Airport, Terminal 3, Changi, Singapore, 2007
 * Tokyo Midtown, Tokyo, Japan, 2007
 * 7 World Trade Center, New York City, 2006
 * Time Warner Center, New York City, 2004
 * Chongming Island Master Plan, Shanghai, China, 2004
 * Greenwich Academy, Upper School, Greenwich, Connecticut, 2002
 * Millennium Park Master Plan, Chicago, 2002
 * 383 Madison Avenue, New York City, 2002
 * Ben Gurion International Airport, Tel Aviv, Israel, 2002
 * John F. Kennedy International Airport, International Arrivals Building, Terminal 4, New York City, 2001
 * San Francisco International Airport, International Terminal, San Francisco, 2000
 * Altice Arena (formerly Pavilhão Atlântico) Lisbon, Portugal, 1998
 * Jin Mao Tower, Shanghai, 1998
 * 1540 Broadway, New York City, 1990
 * One Worldwide Plaza, New York City, 1989
 * Rowes Wharf, Boston, Massachusetts, 1986
 * National Mall Redevelopment, Washington, D.C., 1986
 * 63 Building, Seoul, South Korea, 1985
 * Northeast Corridor Improvement Project, 1985
 * Demonet Building, Washington, D.C., 1984
 * Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1982
 * Hajj Terminal, King Abdul Aziz International Airport, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 1981
 * PNC Center (Cleveland), Cleveland, 1980
 * Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, 1980
 * First Canadian Centre, Calgary, Alberta, 1979
 * Texaco Headquarters, White Plains, New York, 1977
 * Azadi Stadium, Tehran, 1974
 * Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower), Chicago, 1974
 * One Shell Plaza, Houston, Texas, 1972
 * Seneca One Tower, Buffalo, New York, 1972
 * One Shell Square, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1972
 * Weyerhaeuser Corporate Headquarters, Federal Way, Washington, 1971
 * Republic Newspaper Office and Printing Plant, Columbus, Indiana, 1971
 * John Hancock Center, Chicago, 1970
 * 140 Broadway, New York City, 1967
 * Oakland Arena, Oakland, California, 1966
 * Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, Oakland, California, 1966
 * Banque Lambert, Brussels, Belgium, 1964
 * Cook County Administration Building (formerly the Brunswick Building), Chicago, 1964
 * Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 1963
 * Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Extension, Buffalo, New York, 1962
 * United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1962
 * 28 Liberty Street (Chase Manhattan Bank Building), New York City, 1961
 * Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Portland, Oregon, 1960
 * Union Carbide Building, New York City, 1954
 * 500 Park Avenue (Pepsi-Cola Corporation World Headquarters), New York City, 1960
 * Inland Steel Building, Chicago, 1958
 * Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, Bloomfield, Connecticut, 1957
 * Manufacturers Trust Company Building, New York City, 1954
 * Naval Station Great Lakes, Chicago, 1954
 * Lever House, New York City, 1952
 * Manhattan House, New York City, 1951
 * Oak Ridge New Town Master Plan, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 1949
 * Terrace Plaza Hotel, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1948

title: SOM (architectural firm)


text:
Talk:Strength of memory

Should discuss difference between remembering and recall. They are not the same thing. It's possible to be able to remember 1000s of times more than one can recall.

Basically: remembering something means you can recognize it, while recalling it means you have conscious access to the memory.

title: Talk:Strength of memory