Leader and Innovator: Dr. Fazlur R. Khan (1929–1982)

Khan’s optimism and inquisitiveness were encouraged and guided during his childhood. His father greatly influenced him through personal example and instruction. When studying mathematics, for example, he was advised by his father to look for the essence of a problem rather than only its particular solution. He learned to perceive alternative ways of analyzing problems and to apply lessons in broader circumstances. Tackling enjoyable challenges with his father’s support he gained high-level comfort with complexity and fashioned an enduring affection for inquiry.

As a young man Khan was both practical and attracted to abstract thinking. He longed to find the place where his abilities and the needs of the world met; and he sensed that he needed to secure deep personal principles to support him through his life. During his twenties he reflected on his life and his place in the world; he read voraciously, from novels to philosophy, and sought out discussion with others about history and personal responsibility. Growing up in East Bengal, India (a region that is now Bangladesh), he was conscious of the scarcity of resources and acquired a distaste for wastefulness. The combination of his background and his quest for self-improvement provided him with a confident personal stability and self-awareness by the time he was thirty.

Khan’s capacity for innovation and leadership during his career was further strengthened by the understanding of engineering that he gained during his university studies. After he completed his undergraduate work in India he continued his studies at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, where he earned two Master of Science degrees—one in civil engineering, the other in theoretical and applied mechanics—and a doctorate in structural engineering. He experienced the university as a stimulating, demanding, and yet supportive learning environment. His professors held their students to high academic standards, at the same time displaying a sense of camaraderie and personal concern that promoted learning and achievement.

Khan believed this period of intense learning significantly influenced his professional life. His professors taught practical aspects of design and analysis while examining the philosophy and evolution of engineering practice; attentive to “critical thinking on engineering issues,” they helped students develop the ability to appraise a situation and define a problem. His graduate studies reinforced his confidence in independent thinking and prepared him to find the courage for innovation, to think “beyond the traditional methods of practice.” Equally important, he developed an intuitive certainty and directness to guide his approach to new problems.

His graduate studies also afforded him the opportunity to become familiar with the computer, which was starting to be employed in universities in the 1950s in advance of design offices. Thus when he joined SOM in 1960 his experience with the computational tool enabled him to recognize its value, argue for its implementation in the office, and guide its incorporation into the firm’s activities.

Having developed a solid grasp of engineering principles and design methods along with the perspective to inquire into established design philosophy, Khan was prepared to embark upon a pioneering career. Turning ideas into practice, however, required tapping additional skills. He was able to imagine transforming possibilities into realties and he believed that he could do so in his own work. He felt comfortable dealing with competing values and possessed the tolerance for uncertainty and risk, both necessary for making progressive decisions: if he could reason through a situation and logically anticipate an outcome, he was willing to pursue a new direction. His vision along with his tolerance for uncertainty enabled him to shepherd innovative concepts into practice. These strengths likewise created a bridge between the academic setting where he taught as an adjunct professor and the design office.

Soon after settling in Chicago and permanently joining SOM in 1960, Khan took advantage of the office’s ties to an educational institution nearby, the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). The school, under the influence of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s direction, emphasized constructional realties and tended toward structural expression in architecture. When asked by a colleague at SOM to assist a graduate architecture student at IIT, Khan not only agreed but soon also began teaching a structures class on Saturday mornings and advising master’s students on their projects. He counseled students to nurture an understanding and feeling for structures, as opposed to concentrating on mathematical calculation, and he explored structural schemes with students, particularly in master’s thesis projects. The thesis projects aimed for structural innovation and validated new concepts for building systems through analysis and model testing.

The graduate architecture department at IIT proved a valuable setting for structural innovation. It allowed Khan to propose ideas and examine building systems with students enthusiastic about learning; the relevance of these concepts to contemporary building design benefited students’ projects as well. Nevertheless, there remained a large distance between validation in a master’s thesis and use of a new system in a construction project. When Khan realized that the trussed tube system, for instance, which he was studying with a student in 1964, suggested an economical single-tower scheme for the John Hancock Center project, he might have experienced enfeebling trepidation about proposing the untried system to the design team. At least one of his colleagues at the university recommended against taking this bold step. And a few practicing engineers withheld their approval of the proposed system when they were asked for their opinion of it. Thus, Khan’s ability to initiate this new system, as with other progressive ideas throughout his career, depended on his intuitive certainty that the innovation was valid, his willingness to assume responsibility for implementing an idea, and his knowledge and experience with design and construction to achieve his objectives.

Khan enjoyed leading the way toward progress. For him, this role involved both direct participation in advancement and support for others who could participate in what he felt should be a profession-wide ambition for continual improvement. He was well known among colleagues for offering opportunity, direction, and credit for their achievements. His satisfaction in advancement and his enthusiasm for sharing knowledge prompted him to become actively involved in professional organizations. He joined and contributed to existing associations dedicated to structural engineering; in addition, he worked to establish interdisciplinary organizations to bring together engineers, architects, and others associated with building development. In 1968 the Chicago Committee on High-Rise Buildings was formed; the CCHRB’s mission, Khan explained in a letter to Chicago’s mayor, was “to institute, support, and evaluate research in all disciplines aimed toward safe, more economical and efficient design of high-rise buildings.” The following year the CCHRB assisted in the establishment of the ASCE–IABSE Joint Committee on Tall Buildings—known today as the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH)—to promote international communication and document current theory and practical guidelines for professionals worldwide. Khan helped organize CTBUH conferences and prepare its publications, contributing many of his building project histories along with diagrams depicting the newly developed structural systems available to designers. He saw the potential for broadening the profession’s view beyond the two traditional framing systems and instilling an awareness that different building types and heights call for different structural systems. As he had hoped, these diagrams quickly became known and accepted, have been referred to by innumerable engineers over the years, and have served to change designers’ way of thinking about structural framing.

Khan’s leadership in these organizations extended beyond his technical expertise; his ease with people and his ability to clarify complex issues caused colleagues to eagerly join him on such efforts. The calm integrity he radiated was enlivened by a vitality that was inspirational. In the design office his personal manner had a similar effect. He had a knack for sweeping others up in the excitement of a project and creating an environment for shared aspirations among project participants. Having no formal training in leadership or management theory, he drew upon his experiences and anticipated a technique that has gained acceptance in the decades since. Balancing creative flexible thinking and practical discipline, he incorporated collegial debate and interdependent decision making into the traditional hierarchical method. He shaped a style of leadership that not only directs but cultivates—a style that also melded his roles as instructor and advisor at IIT with his position as project engineer, and as chief structural engineer and general partner in the design office. He believed strongly in teamwork and emphasized the benefit of personal interaction, shared expertise, and interdisciplinary understanding to both the individual and the group.