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MAS Context Fall Talks 2017

Celebrating 20 years of the Guggenheim Bilbao

November 1, 2017

On Wednesday, November 1, MAS Context and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. This event was a unique opportunity to learn first hand about the making of one of the most important buildings of the end of the twentieth century.

Contributors

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3D drawings for the Guggenheim Museum. © SOM.

Designed by Frank O. Gehry & Associates, the Guggenheim Museum was a feat of design and construction. The use of digital modeling, including the now famous CATIA, and other innovations opened the door to a new generation of architecture that defined in the beginnings of the twenty-first century. The Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) served as the structural engineer for the building with Bilbao-based IDOM as the local engineer. It was a unique collaboration that proved to be a major success.

To commemorate the twentieth anniversary of its opening, John Zils, Associate Partner Emeritus at SOM, discussed the work of SOM in the project while Bill Baker, Structural and Civil Engineering Partner at SOM, discussed the Guggenheim Museum in relationship to the engineering work that has been developed in the office in the last two decades.

Iker Gil, editor in chief of MAS Context, kicked off the event by providing an overview of the transformation of the city of Bilbao, from the challenges it was facing to the situation twenty years after the opening of the museum.

The transformation of Bilbao was documented in the issue 30-31 of MAS Context. Among the contributions, the issue features an interview with John Zils. You can read the issue here.

The exhibition SOM: Engineering x [Art + Architecture], currently on display in Chicago and presented with Mana Contemporary Chicago in partnership with the Chicago Architecture Biennial, reveals the concepts and forms that stem from SOM’s integrated practice of engineering, art, and architecture. For more information, please visit: www.chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/calendar/som-engineering-art-architecture/

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SOM: Engineering x [Art + Architecture] exhibition, Chicago, 2017. © Courtesy of SOM.

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Contributor Bios

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John Zils

John Zils is an Associate Partner Emeritus at Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) Since joining SOM in 1966, John has served as structural engineer on numerous projects ranging widely in scope and scale, including the 110-story Sears Tower in Chicago, the King Abdul Aziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. John is the recipient of multiple awards including those from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Institute of Steel Construction, and the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois.

William Baker

Bill Baker is one of the world’s leading structural engineers and a consulting partner at SOM. He has designed innovative structures that range in scale from single-family homes and small pedestrian bridges to the world’s tallest manmade structure, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. His cutting-edge designs include the unique Broadgate Exchange House in London—which is both a building and a bridge that spans over Liverpool Street Station—and the cable-supported entry pavilion for the General Motors Headquarters in Detroit. Additionally, Bill is widely recognized for his collaborations with renowned artists, such as James Carpenter, Janet Echelman, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, James Turrell, and Jaume Plensa.

Iker Gil

Iker Gil is the founder of MAS Studio, Editor in Chief of the nonprofit MAS Context, and Executive Director of the SOM Foundation. Iker has edited or coedited several books including Radical Logic: On the Work of Ensamble Studio and Shanghai Transforming. He has curated multiple exhibitions including Nocturnal Landscapes, Poured Architecture: Sergio Prego on Miguel Fisac, and BOLD: Alternative Scenarios for Chicago, part of the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial. He was Associate Curator of the US Pavilion for the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale and cocurator of Exhibit Columbus 2020–2021. He has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), and Escola da Cidade (São Paulo).