Adrian Smith: Supertall/Megatall: How High Can We Go?

Adrian Smith’s talk, Supertall/Megatall: How High Can We Go?, will explore how the skyscraper captured the imagination of the public while becoming widely popular to the profession of Architecture. He will focus on the stories behind his designs, including projects completed while Design Partner at SOM Chicago including Jin Mao, Nanjing Greenland, Burj Khalifa, and Pearl River Tower and AS+GG projects Jeddah Tower, 1 Dubai, and Biophilic Tower. He will discuss how each design was conceived for their specific sites, as well as the successes and unique challenges of each project.

Adrian Smith, FAIA, Design Partner and Founder of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS+GG), is the architect of more than 4,000 meters—nearly 2.5 vertical miles—of skyscrapers. He has been the designer for seven structures in our SUPERTALL! 2020 exhibition: Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai; Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago; Zifeng Tower in Nanjing; Wuhan Greenland Center; Chengdu Greenland Tower; the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the current world’s tallest man-made structure ay 828 meters, and Jeddah Tower, under construction in Saudi Arabia, which if completed will reach at least 1,000 meters. No architect can claim a comparable number of projects or come within 600 feet of the tip of his current tallest tower.

Smith’s skyscrapers combine state-of-the-art systems and technologies that strive for environmental sustainability with an imageability that reflect a desire to connect to geographical, cultural, and social influences, a design philosophy he calls Global Contextualism. His approach has won him competitions and clients worldwide.

In 2006, Smith co-founded the Chicago-based firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture. Before establishing AS+GG, from 1980 to 2003 he was a Design Partner in the Chicago office of SOM and a Consulting Design Partner from 2003 to 2006. His projects have received more than 125 design awards including five international awards, nine National AlA awards, among dozens of others. He has lectured worldwide and served on numerous professional juries and committees.

An alumnus of Texas A & M University, School of Architecture and the University of Illinois at Chicago, he has also received an honorary doctorate from Texas A & M.