Nathaniel A. Owings - Career

Career

Owings first job as an architect was with the New York firm of York and Sawyer.

As a young architect, Owings was impressed with Raymond Hood, who designed the RCA Building in Rockefeller Center. More than 50 years later, Owings described his first glimpse of the 70-story skyscraper as a breathtaking "knife edge, presenting its narrow dimension to Fifth Avenue."

Hood's recommendation led to a job Owings worked as an architect on the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago (1929–34). He had been hired by his brother-in-law, Louis Skidmore, the chief architect for the exposition. Together they designed the layout and buildings for the entire site. They were told to build pavilions for more than 500 exhibits at minimum cost using lightweight, mass-produced materials; and they devised solutions, using the simplest materials—pavilions built out of beaverboard.

After the exposition was over, the two men worked independently before forming a Chicago-based partnership in 1936 with a small office at 104 South Michigan Avenue. Some smaller projects remain from this period. An architecturally significant residence in Northfield, Illinois still looks and feels contemporary because of its open, inviting interiors and large windows. The partnership developed projects for corporate clients they had met during the Chicago exposition.

The firm opened a second office at 5 East 57th Street in New York in 1937; and young Gordon Bunshaft was hired by Skidmore. This satellite office focused initially on designing and developing a new office building for the American Radiator Company.