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Nathaniel Alexander Owings (February 5, 1903 - June 13, 1984) was an American architect, a founding partner of Skidmore Owings and Merrill (SOM), which became one of the largest architectural firms in the United States and the world. Owings viewed skyscrapers as his firm's specialty. His reputation rested on his ability to be what he called "the catalyst," the person in his firm who ironed out differences among clients, contractors and planning commissions.

Family life

Owings was born in 1903 in Indianapolis, Indiana. After his first marriage ended, his second wife was Margaret Wentworth.

Career

As a young architect, Owings was impressed with Raymond Hood, who designed the RCA Building in Rockefeller Center. More than 50 years later, Owings described his first glimpse of the 70-story skyscraper as a breathtaking "knife edge, presenting its narrow dimension to Fifth Avenue."

Hood's recommendation led to a job Owings worked as an architect on the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago (1929-34). He had been hired by his brother-in-law, Louis Skidmore, the chief architect for the exposition. Together they designed the layout and buildings for the entire site. They were told to build pavilions for more than 500 exhibits at minimum cost using lightweight, mass-produced materials; and they devised solutions, using the simplest materials -- pavilions built out of beaverboard.

After the exposition was over, the two men worked independently before forming a Chicago-based partnership in 1936. The partnership developed projects for corporate clients they had met during the Chicago exposition. The firm opened an office in New York City in 1937. This satellite office focused initially on designing and developing a new office building for the American Radiator Company.

The two architects won the contract to design the 1939-40 New York World's Fair; and in 1939 engineer John Ogden Merrill joined the firm as partner. The name was changed to Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and the firm's operations were decentralized. Owings's initial responsibilities centered on the Chicago office.

During the war years, the firm built a number of large housing projects. The partnership was hired to build a secret town for 75,000 residents in Oak Ridge, Tennessee where the atomic bomb was being developed.

SOM developed its reputation for reliability in large developments, and became one of the largest and most talked-about skyscraper builders in the 1950s. The firm helped to popularize the International style during the postwar period. Their best-known early work is Lever House (1952), which was designed by Gordon Bunshaft and reflects the influence of Mies Van der Rohe.

In 1954, SOM was awarded another major government-appointed project -- the United States Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs, Colorado. Tuesday Owings and his associates supervised 40 general contractors on a 17,900-acre site; but his principal role in the project was to mediate differences between members of a Senate appropriations subcommittee and Air Force officers, some of whom had misgivings about what they thought were the firm's unacceptably modern designs.

Washington Mall

In the Kennedy years, the plan to redesign Pennsylvania Avenue was the most significant redevelopment project in the country. Owings headed the team which developed the preliminary design during more than a year of closely guarded, top-level work.

Owings and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then urban affairs adviser in President Richard Nixon's administration, were ultimately credited with the success of the master plan for the Washington Mall and for the redesign of Pennsylvania Avenue as the capital's grand ceremonial boulevard. Owings' influence continued after this planning phase was completed. His SOM protegé was David Childs, who was later appointed by President Gerald Ford as chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission.

In his long career, Owings presided over more than $3-billion in construction projects.

Selected works

• 1969 -- The American Aesthetic
• 1973 -- The Spaces in Between: An Architect's Journey

Honors

• 1983 -- American Institute of Architects Gold Medal.

Later years

Owings died at age 81 in Santa Fe, New Mexico on June 13, 1984.

Notes

1. ^ Barron, James. "Nathaniel Owings, 81, Dies; Early Skyscraper Advocate," New York Times. June 14, 1984.
2. Saxon, Wolfgang. "Margaret W. Owings, 85, Defender of Wild Creatures," New York Times. January 31, 1999; Online Archive of California: Margaret Wentworth Owings Papers, 1913-1996.
3. ^ FundingUniverse: SOM company history.
4. Louchheim, Aline B. "Architecture of an for Our Day; Museum of Modern Art Singles Out Work Of One Firm," New York Times. September 24, 1950.
5. "Senators Pleased as Air Force Trims Academy Design's Glass," New York Times. July 19, 1955.
6. Hutxtable, Ada Louise. "Plan for Rebuilding Pennsylvania Ave. Is Near Completion; National Capital's 'Grand Axis' Is to Be Restored," New York Times. August 20, 1963.
7. Iovine, Julie V. "The New Ground Zero; The Invisible Architect," New York Times. August 31, 2003.
8. "To Cherish Rather than Destroy," Time. August 2, 1968.
9. American Institute of Architects: Gold Medal Awards.

References

• A. Bush-Brown, Albert and Oswald W. Grube. (1984). Skidmore, Owings and Merrill: Architecture and Urbanism, 1973–1983. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
• Kostoff, Spiro and Dana Cuff. (2000). The Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession. Berkeley: . 10-ISBN 0-520-22604-6; 13-ISBN 978-0-520-22604-3

External links

• SOM: corporate web site.

• 1903 births
• 1984 deaths
• American architects
• Modernist architects