6 ms·

Fazlur Khan: The engineer who made it possible to live in the sky

86 points by DaniFong 12y ago

rayiner 12y ago
He's got a special place in my heart, as an engineer, a Bengali, and as someone who loves Chicago and its architecture. Its worth visiting the Sears Tower if you haven't. Its one of the great wonders of engineering and architecture. They have an exhibit to Khan on the tour. There is a story about him. He was visiting his native Bangladesh, and someone asked him: "why don't you come back here?" He said: "I build skyscrapers, what am I going to do here?" What's really great about the Sears Tower is how you can see the bundled tube structure in the exterior architecture: http://www.steelguru.com/uploads/reports/fea1-03-10-2010.jpg http://www.steelguru.com/uploads/reports/fea1-03-10-2010.jpg The Burj Kalifa also: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TIxCUNbAei8/T8p_3a2AHoI/AAAAAAAAABI/cc4iY2O7GVE/s1600/Burj_Khalifa_4.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TIxCUNbAei8/T8p_3a2AHoI/AAAAAAAAAB...
- wglb 12y ago
  Turns out he did build one in Bangldesh. I wasn't aware that he also did the Hancock building. While I was a student at NU, I would take the L down and walk along Chicago Avenue to my part-time job at the NU Medical School as the Hancock was being built. I still have some Kodachrome slides of it as it was going up.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    There's a great article on the design of the Hancock tower, which goes into the reasons for the (now iconic) diagonal bracing: http://khan.princeton.edu/khanHancock.html http://khan.princeton.edu/khanHancock.html. During my time at NU, I lived right next to Onterie, which has architectural diagonal bracing as a nod to Kahn's work on the Hancock tower.
    - wglb 12y ago
      Nice. At the time that the Hancock was going up, there were lots of Trib articles about the engineering aspects of the braces. Chicago does have such a great architectural examples. Matasano has offices in the Monadnock building, at one time on the 18th floor of a 17 story building. Marvelous building.
- 001sky 12y ago
  This pic is helpful for a 3D look at the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Willis_Tower_tube_structure.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Willis_Tower_tube_structu...
andy_herbert 12y ago
Very interesting, although is there a reason that it's been posted now?
- jmcmahon443 12y ago
  Because sometimes it's nice to see other people's success. It sure keeps me going.
  - andy_herbert 12y ago
    I appreciate the sentiment, and no disrespect for the guy either, but it makes this site a little less like 'Hacker News' and more like the front page of Wikipedia.
    - adwf 12y ago
      Yeah I know what you mean. I sometimes start flagging the wikipedia articles when there are too many on the front page. It really does feel odd when there's too many, as if people are just desperate for karma (a la reddit). I'm not saying that they shouldn't be on hackernews exactly... but I wish people would at least write up a blogpost or find a news article about a subject, rather than just posting wikipedia pages directly.

86 points by DaniFong 12y ago

He's got a special place in my heart, as an engineer, a Bengali, and as someone who loves Chicago and its architecture. Its worth visiting the Sears Tower if you haven't. Its one of the great wonders of engineering and architecture. They have an exhibit to Khan on the tour. There is a story about him. He was visiting his native Bangladesh, and someone asked him: "why don't you come back here?" He said: "I build skyscrapers, what am I going to do here?" What's really great about the Sears Tower is how you can see the bundled tube structure in the exterior architecture: http://www.steelguru.com/uploads/reports/fea1-03-10-2010.jpg http://www.steelguru.com/uploads/reports/fea1-03-10-2010.jpg The Burj Kalifa also: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TIxCUNbAei8/T8p_3a2AHoI/AAAAAAAAABI/cc4iY2O7GVE/s1600/Burj_Khalifa_4.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TIxCUNbAei8/T8p_3a2AHoI/AAAAAAAAAB...

wglb 12y ago
Turns out he did build one in Bangldesh. I wasn't aware that he also did the Hancock building. While I was a student at NU, I would take the L down and walk along Chicago Avenue to my part-time job at the NU Medical School as the Hancock was being built. I still have some Kodachrome slides of it as it was going up.
- rayiner 12y ago
  There's a great article on the design of the Hancock tower, which goes into the reasons for the (now iconic) diagonal bracing: http://khan.princeton.edu/khanHancock.html http://khan.princeton.edu/khanHancock.html. During my time at NU, I lived right next to Onterie, which has architectural diagonal bracing as a nod to Kahn's work on the Hancock tower.
  - wglb 12y ago
    Nice. At the time that the Hancock was going up, there were lots of Trib articles about the engineering aspects of the braces. Chicago does have such a great architectural examples. Matasano has offices in the Monadnock building, at one time on the 18th floor of a 17 story building. Marvelous building.
001sky 12y ago
This pic is helpful for a 3D look at the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Willis_Tower_tube_structure.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Willis_Tower_tube_structu...

andy_herbert 12y ago

Very interesting, although is there a reason that it's been posted now?

jmcmahon443 12y ago
Because sometimes it's nice to see other people's success. It sure keeps me going.
- andy_herbert 12y ago
  I appreciate the sentiment, and no disrespect for the guy either, but it makes this site a little less like 'Hacker News' and more like the front page of Wikipedia.
  - adwf 12y ago
    Yeah I know what you mean. I sometimes start flagging the wikipedia articles when there are too many on the front page. It really does feel odd when there's too many, as if people are just desperate for karma (a la reddit). I'm not saying that they shouldn't be on hackernews exactly... but I wish people would at least write up a blogpost or find a news article about a subject, rather than just posting wikipedia pages directly.