Myron Goldsmith (September 15, 1918 – July 15, 1996) was an American architect and designer.David W. Dunla

July 17, 1996 New York Times He was a student of

Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd ...

and

Pier Luigi Nervi Pier Luigi Nervi (21 June 1891 – 9 January 1979) was an Italian engineer and architect. He studied at the University of Bologna graduating in 1913. Nervi taught as a professor of engineering at Rome University from 1946 to 1961 and is known wor ...

before designing 40 projects at

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is an American architectural, urban planning and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel A. Owings, Nathaniel Owings in Chicago, Illinois. In 1939, they were joined by engineer Jo ...

from 1955 to 1983. His last 16 years at the firm he was a general partner in its Chicago office. His best known project is the McMath–Pierce solar telescope building constructed in 1962 at the

Kitt Peak National Observatory The Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) is a United States astronomical observatory located on Kitt Peak of the Quinlan Mountains in the Arizona-Sonoran Desert on the Tohono Oʼodham Nation, west-southwest of Tucson, Arizona. With more than ...

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

. It is visited by an estimated 100,000 people a year.

Background

Goldsmith was born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

and graduated in 1939 from the

Illinois Institute of Technology Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The university has prog ...

, where he studied under Mies, whose Chicago office he joined in 1946. He worked there until 1953, when he received a Fulbright grant to study under Nervi at the University of Rome.

Career

His first major projects at Skidmore were two

United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois.

hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

s at

San Francisco International Airport San Francisco International Airport is an international airport in an unincorporated area of San Mateo County, south of Downtown San Francisco. It has flights to points throughout North America and is a major gateway to Europe, the Middl ...

, one of which used

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a cant ...

ed steel

girder A girder () is a support beam used in construction. It is the main horizontal support of a structure which supports smaller beams. Girders often have an I-beam cross section composed of two load-bearing ''flanges'' separated by a stabilizin ...

s to hold four DC-8 jetliners. He was a professor of architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology beginning in 1961. In his 1987

monograph A monograph is a specialist work of writing (in contrast to reference works) or exhibition on a single subject or an aspect of a subject, often by a single author or artist, and usually on a scholarly subject. In library cataloging, ''monogra ...

he wrote that: "A building should be built with economy, efficiency, discipline and order." At the time of his death, he was a member of a team organized by the institute to design a 120-story office, hotel and commercial structure in Seoul for the Hyundai Engineering and Construction Company. The project, known as "Hankang City," would have been one of the world's tallest buildings at 1,699.48 feet; but the project was canceled and the building was never built.

Projects

Plaza on Dewitt The Plaza on DeWitt was completed in 1966 as a residential apartment building at 260 E. Chestnut Street in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago. Originally called the DeWitt-Chestnut Apartment Building, and designed by Bangladeshi-Pakistani ...

(1960) * McMath–Pierce solar telescope building (1962) *Brunswick Building (1965) * Oakland Alameda County Coliseum (1966) * The Republic Newspaper Office (1971) in Columbus, Indiana * Ruck-a-Chucky Bridge (unbuilt) planned to cross the

American River , name_etymology = , image = American River CA.jpg , image_size = 300 , image_caption = The American River at Folsom , map = Americanrivermap.png , map_size = 300 , map_caption ...

in Auburn, California northeast of Sacramento

Gallery

File:Oakland Coliseum field from Mt. Davis.JPG, O.co Coliseum File:Memorial Coliseum wide view from north, 2013.jpg, Portland Memorial Coliseum File:Theoraclearena.jpg, Oracle Arena

Exhibitions

The Unknown Mies van der Rohe and His Disciples of Modernism

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

, Chicago (1986)
Myron Goldsmith: Poet of Structure

Canadian Centre for Architecture The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA; french: Centre Canadien d'Architecture) is a museum of architecture and research centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 1920, rue Baile (1920, Baile Street), between rue Fort (Fort Street ...

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

(1991)

References

External links

Myron Goldsmith pays tribute to
Fazlur Rahman Khan in the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
Finding aid for the Myron Goldsmith fonds

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Goldsmith, Myron 1918 births 1996 deaths 20th-century American architects Architects from Chicago Illinois Institute of Technology alumni American expatriates in Italy Fulbright alumni