Fazlur Khan was an Asian American engineer who designed skyscrapers. His ideas completely changed the way tall buildings are built.
Khan was born in 1929 in what is now Bangladesh. He later moved to the United States to continue his education. He joined an architectural firm in Chicago in 1955. That’s when he began designing skyscrapers and other kinds of buildings.
Super skyscrapers were popular at the time. They were also very expensive and difficult to build. Khan set out to find a better way to build them. He looked at tubes of bamboo. He thought about how the shape and structure of the tubes made the plant strong. Then he imagined a way to use that structure as a frame system for a tall building. The tube structure would reduce the amount of steel or concrete needed to support the building. It would make the building lighter and less expensive to build.
Khan and his architect partner Bruce Graham turned this idea into reality. They first used a tubular frame structure in a 42-story apartment building. Later, they improved the system and used it in the designs for the100-story John Hancock Tower and the 110-story Sears Tower. When the Sears Tower was completed in 1973, it was the tallest building in the world. It held that honor for almost 25 years. Today, it is known as Willis Tower. It is still the tallest building in the Chicago skyline.
Fazlur Khan may be best known for his skyscrapers, but he worked on other kinds of buildings, too. These include an airport terminal in Saudi Arabia, a solar telescope in Arizona, and a football stadium in Minnesota. Khan died in 1982, but his ideas live on. Building designers around the world still use variations of his tubular design in high-rise buildings today.
What Do You Think? Look at images of some of Fazlur Khan’s buildings online. Which one do you like best?
Photo Credit: Jonathan Weiss/Alamy Stock Photo
