SOM: ARCHITECTURE OF SKIDMORE, OWINGS & MERRILL. 1963 TO 1973

This book is dedicated to SOMs most recent work. The gradual move away from the ideas of the 1950s, a period which was entirely characterized by the International Style, has not, as was sometimes feared, resulted in a decrease but rather in an increase in architectural quality. To the continued almost unsurpassable technical and organizational discipline has now been added an astonishingly varied form-language. Of those who are moving in completely new directions we should mention, above all, Walter Netsch in Chicago and Edward Bassett in San Francisco. Netsch developed a multi-axial ground-plan geometry which makes it possible to use identical elements which are easy to mass-produce in the construction of extremely complex buildings which can be extended on the principle of cellular structures; Bassett is especially concerned with overcoming the isolation of individual buildings which is a heritage of the International Style period. But even those who have carried on along the principles of the 1950s have not been simply marking time. On the contrary, they subject these principles to new interpretations and continue to develop them consequentially, either toward an intensification of the architectural expression (Gordon Bunshaft, Roy Allen) or toward a refinement of the construction methods (Bruce Graham, Fazlur Khan). Bunshaft has, in recent years, distinguished himself above all in his response to the challenge of an increased desire for symbolism in architecture; the names Graham and Khan are synonymous with the process of forming the external framework of a building as a self-supporting tube, a development which has opened up completely new perspectives in the field of skyscraper construction.