A New Exhibition Explores the Influence of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

Since its founding in 1936, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has gained a reputation for creating some of the most forward-thinking structures on the planet. From the Burj Khalifa in Dubai to the John Hancock Center in Chicago to One World Trade Center in New York, the Manhattan-based firm has not only pushed the envelope of architecture but done so on some of the world’s most complex projects. Starting today, in Aalborg, Denmark, the Utzon Center (devised by Danish architect Jørn Utzon , designer of the Sydney Opera House) is celebrating SOM’s ingenuity with a survey of 26 of its towering structures around the globe. Titled “Sky's the Limit: The Engineering of Architecture,” the exhibition features original sketches, renderings, and scale models of notable SOM skyscrapers to explore the many ways in which the firm has defined city skylines and advanced the field of architecture. Visitors will also have a chance to become architects themselves, if only for a brief moment. LEGO bricks are available for showgoers to build their own structures at the gallery.

Although the Utzon Center exhibition focuses on relatively few buildings, SOM has spent the past several decades completing more than 10,000 projects in over 50 countries. The firm is currently working on a skyscraper in southwest Sweden that, when completed in 2020, will be Scandinavia’s tallest building. The exhibition will be on view through January 15, 2017.

Completed in 1990, London’s Exchange House shows an array of sophisticated engineering techniques that have made SOM famous.

The SOM-designed headquarters of Japan Tobacco International is located in Geneva, Switzerland. The architecture firm created a striking building that features a façade made of glass triangles.

When it was competed in 1969, the iconic John Hancock Center was the world's first mixed-use tower. It's also the fourth tallest building in Chicago, and eighth tallest building in the United States.