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Architect of Mile-High Tower To Talk Skyscrapers at U. of C.

By Sam Cholke | September 27, 2013 8:33am
 Architect Adrian Smith will speak about designing the world's tallest buildings at the Logan Center for the Arts on Oct. 2.
Architect Adrian Smith will speak about designing the world's tallest buildings at the Logan Center for the Arts on Oct. 2.
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Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture/Tim Griffith

HYDE PARK — The new king of the skies will visit the University of Chicago to discuss plans for the new tallest building in the world.

Architect Adrian Smith of Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture will visit the Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St., at 6 p.m. Oct. 2.

Smith is an architect known for designing super-tall structures to bolster anemic skylines, most notably the nearly one-mile tall Kingdom Tower currently under construction in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Smith is a man of tall buildings. While at the Chicago firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, which designed the Sears Tower, he worked on the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, currently the world’s tallest tower.

In April, construction began on Kingdom Tower, which was originally planned to be over a mile tall, but has since been scaled back. Even at a revised 3,280 feet tall, the Kingdom Tower is still more than twice as tall as the Willis, nee Sears, Tower.

The event, part of the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust’s 2013 Thinking into the Future lecture series, is $25. Tickets are available at gowright.org.

A cocktail reception will follow the lecture.