Who was Fazlur Rahman Khan? Architect featured in Google Doodle
TODAY’S Google Doodle celebrates architect Fazlur Rahman Khan’s birthday, but who was he and why was he called “the Einstein of structural engineering”?
Google Doodle is celebrating the birthday of famed architect Fazlur Rahman Khan
Who was Fazlur Rahman Khan?
Fazlur Rahman Khan is a Bangladeshi-American engineer and architect whose pioneering designs dot the skylines of America.
His younger brother Zillur Khan once said that he "was not only a creative structural engineer, he was also a philosopher, visionary, educator and humanist”.
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He was born on April 3, 1929, in Dhala, Bengal – now known as Bangladesh – to a mathematician and an author.
As a young man in 1950, Mr Khan completed a bachelor’s degree in engineering at the University of Dhaka at the top of his class.
He then travelled to the US where he earned a further two master’s degrees and a PhD, thanks to a joint American Fulbright and Pakistani scholarship.
By 1960 Mr Khan was part of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), a Chicago based architectural and engineering firm.
Mr Khan invented and pioneered the "tube systems" design in architecture
He was not only a creative structural engineer, he was also a philosopher, visionary, educator and humanist
It was there in Chicago where he developed his trademark “tube systems” skyscraper design.
Buildings constructed with this new method were made up by a frame of vertical tubes which protected skyscrapers from winds and earthquakes.
This pioneering design led to engineer Richard G Weingard naming Mr Khan “the Einstein of structural engineering”.
One of his most famous designs was the John Hancock Centre in Chicago, which topped out in 1968.
It stands at 343m tall, which at the time of completion made it the second tallest building in the world until it was then overtaken by the iconic Sears tower in 1974 – another of Khan’s engineering masterpieces.
His work was not limited to skyscrapers in America. Another of his most notable buildings is the tent-like Hajj Terminal in Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah.
Andrew Saint of the University of Cambridge described the terminal as “perhaps the most intelligent project ever built by an American firm in the oil states.”
The structural engineer also lent a hand in the building of the Hajj Terminal in Saudi Arabia
Mr Khan's contributions to the world of architectural engineering earned him the Wason Medal in 1971 from the American Concrete Institute.
In 1973 he was awarded with the the Oscar Faber medal from the Institution of Structural Engineers in London.
The engineer died in 1982 after suffering a fatal heart attack during a trip to Saudi Arabia.
He was survived by his Austrian wife Liselotte and his daughter Yasmin Sabina Khan, who grew up to be a structural engineer just like her father.
Mr Khan won several awards for his work and was named of the top engineers in the world
Fazlur Rahman Khan’s iconic buildings:
• Sears tower, Chicago, America.
• John Hancock Center, Chicago, America.
• Hajj Terminal, King Abdulaziz International Airport, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
• United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, America.
• One Shell Square, New Orleans, Louisiana, America.
• DeWitt-Chestnut Apartments, Chicago, America.
• McMath–Pierce solar telescope, Arizona, America.