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Book Review: Art of the Skyscraper: The Genius of Fazlur Khan

Author Kathy Krepps

by Kathy Krepps, Class of 2017

Commemorating Willis Tower’s 50 year milestone includes honoring the innovative engineer who came up with the structural form that defined what was then known as the Sears Tower.  In his book, Art of the Skyscraper: The Genius of Fazlur Khan (2001), Mir M. Ali tells us why the elegance of Fazlur Rahman Khan’s spaces, vision, collaboration, and humanity matter.

Ali is qualified to write about Khan.  As a fellow Bangladeshi, engineer, member of the Skidmore, Owings and Merrill team that worked with Khan on several projects, Professor Emeritus and former Chair of the School of Engineering at the University of Illinois, and Fellow of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, Ali understands Khan’s cultural and professional motivation to discover new structural systems addressing the “social and visual impact of buildings.” Ali supports his work with an extensive bibliography of articles and papers by and about Dr. Khan. 

The book works on two levels.  The biographical information, including reflections from associates and friends, complements the  technical descriptions and schematic drawings of Khan’s forms and systems.  Some readers will enjoy the documentation of structural theory and applied mechanics,  while others will seek out the anecdotes evidencing the structural integrity of Khan’s character. Separate chapters are dedicated to the John Hancock “Tower of Strength”, the Sears Tower “Tube of Tubes”, Khan’s leadership role in the formation of the Council on Tall Buildings, and his “struggle to make the building a more humane and livable space”.

Ali describes interviewing architect Bruce Graham about the famous Chicago Club Graham/Khan lunch, when Graham used cigarettes to illustrate the bundled tube idea,  and “Faz” responded that it was a hell of an idea worth pursuing. He describes Khan reacting to a 1973  Newsweek article naming him the  “Man at the Top”, by writing a letter crediting Graham as his design partner and and collaborator.  He confirms how attuned Khan was to the comfort levels in buildings by telling stories like the one about Khan’s SOM colleague, David Wickersheimer.  Finding Khan measuring the humidity and airflow in a hotel room where they were attending a conference, Wickersheimer asked why?  Khan replied “What good is a building if it is not comfortable to its users?”

The author integrates Khan’s work with other legendary names in engineering and design including William LeBaron Jenny, Mies, Myron Goldsmith, Robert Maillart, Pier L. Nervi, and Santiago Calatrava. But the most eloquent and concise tribute to Khan’s work is contained in the  first few lines of the eulogy delivered by Bruce Graham, found at the end of the book.  Graham said this about his friend, Dr. Fazlur Rahman Khan: 

He fought the wind and the force of gravity

with elegance of vision and form.

But beyond these professional goals, 

well fulfilled, his concerns were the gravity of

the human condition and its amelioration. 

Check out Art of the Skyscraper The Genius of Fazlur Khan by Mir M Ali in the Barry Sears Library. 

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This Post Has 9 Comments

  1. Bobbi

    I believe the author of this fascinating article is Kathy Krepps!

    1. Emily

      Thanks for pointing out this misattribution. Many thanks to Kathy Krepps for an excellent piece.

  2. Robin

    Beautiful insights. Will inform my tours. Thank you!

  3. Ronnie Jo

    I may just have to read this book! thanks, Kathy, for the interesting review.

  4. Russ

    Thanks for the great review.

  5. John

    I learned a lot even from just the review. Thanks!

  6. Jennifer

    Thanks to Kathy Krepps for inspiring me to check out this book, and more, about Fazlur Kahn. This review makes me want to have been a bug on the wall during that famous Graham/Kahn luncheon, Plus, now I’m wondering if there will be a movie about the making of his skyscrapers, especially Sears Tower – ?

  7. Robert

    Let me add my thanks to Kathy Krepps for this review of what I’m sure is a most interesting book on one of the greatest structural engineers of the 20th century. I will certainly read the book!

    It might be a good thing for the Barry Sears Library to add another book on Fazlur Khan – Engineering Architecture: the Vision of Fazlur R. Khan, by Fazlur Khan’s daughter Yasmin Sabrina Khan, who is herself a structural engineer. (Published by W. W. Norton & Co., 2004). Yasmin Sabrina Khan is also the author of Enlightening the World: the Creation of the Statue of Liberty (Cornell University Press, 2010).

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