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PREFACE:

Dr. Khan’s contributions to the design of tall buildings have had a profound impact on the profession. Kahn had a unique understanding of forces, materials, behavior, as well as art, literature, and architecture. Long before there was widespread focus on environmental issues, Kahn’s designs promoted structural efficiency and minimizing the use of materials resulting in the least carbon emission impact on the environment. 

Kahn was interested in the performance of structural systems over an expected life; recognizing a building’s life-cycle and issues of abnormal loading demands, he developed concepts to apply to severe wind environments as well as early concepts of seismic isolation of structures. These system ideas have led to the development of other concepts which have yielded buildings much taller than those considered by Kahn. His ideas have inspired others to expand the possibilities in tall building design, life-cycle engineering and the effects of the structures on the environment.

Dr. Khan’s contributions to the design of tall buildings have had a profound impact on the profession. Kahn had a unique understanding of forces, materials, behavior, as well as art, literature, and architecture. Long before there was widespread focus on environmental issues, Kahn’s designs promoted structural efficiency and minimizing the use of materials resulting in the least carbon emission impact on the environment. Kahn was interested in the performance of structural systems over an expected life; recognizing a building’s life-cycle and issues of abnormal loading demands, he developed concepts to apply to severe wind environments as well as early concepts of seismic isolation of structures. 

These system ideas have led to the development of other concepts which have yielded buildings much taller than those considered by Kahn. His ideas have inspired others to expand the possibilities in tall building design, life-cycle engineering and the effects of the structures on the environment. 

Inquisitive as a child, Fazlur Rahman Kahn was interested in form and how forms could be made. He created objects with mud, clay and sand, and was interested in mechanical objects, learning that some where fragile and could easily be broken if they did not have the required strength. He was passionate about literature and poetry and had a special interest in societies, particularly those related to his family’s background and the people of Bangladesh. As a young student Kahn was interested in studying physics but his father encouraged him to focus on applying his mathematical skills to his practical and mechanical interests. 

Several of Kahn’s early works were focused on the design of bridges. After graduating with a civil engineering degree from the University of Dhaka previously known and the University of Dacca, East Pakistan, he worked as an engineer for the Design Division, Communications and Buildings Department of the Government of East Pakistan. After completing his graduate studies at the University of Illinois, he began his career at SOM, initially hired to design highway and railroad bridges under the direction of the U.S. Air Force Academy. In the late 1950’s Kahn returned to his home country to be the Director of the country’s Building Research Center. 

However, the offer was subsequently withdrawn and he went on to become an Executive Engineer with the Karachi Development Authority. Because he felt that his technical abilities where not fully utilized, Kahn returned to SOM in 1960 where he spent the rest of his career developing arguably some of the most important structural designs of the century.

 It is interesting that Kahn’s favorite poet was Rabindranath Tagore and that his favorite poem was the “Tagore Song,” which begins with the Bengali lyric “This is your beginning and my end. The flow (of life) continues mixing both of us.” So much of what is considered in recent developments of structural optimization, efficiency, and life-cycle considerations is based on flow—the flow of forces, material, and energy. 

The future of structures is to design for this flow and create structures that behave naturally without damage when subjected to extreme loading conditions. Renewal and opportunity followed the Great Chicago Fire on October 9th, 1971, first through Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition schedule for completion in 1892 (four centuries after the discovery of the Americas by Columbus) but finished in 1893 with the development of new ideas from Daniel Burnham, William Holabird, Louis Sullivan, John Wellborn Root and others. Following the exposition, the first skyscraper age as well as the era of the First Chicago School emerged corresponding with the early use of structural steel and advances in structural engineering. 

The age ushered in the idea of structural frames clad with exterior wall systems and vertical transportation through passenger and freight elevators. The first skeletal form with a glass and structured façade was designed by William Le Baron Jenny, a civil engineer that practiced as an architect and considered the father of the First Chicago School, through the Leiter Building (1879), and later in the Home Insurance Building (1885), which is considered the world’s first skyscraper. 

Jenny, Sullivan, and Root, among others, designed structures that where utilitarian, economical, and free of excessive ornamentation. Root’s Monadnock Building completed in 1891 was the tallest in the world at the time with 16 stories of load bearing masonry. It is still the tallest load bearing masonry building in the world and an excellent example of a structural response to force flow through gradually increasing widths and depths of the masonry walls as the building meets its foundations .