Chicago magazine takes aim at the inner workings of the renowned architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in a story by Jay Pridmore in the February 2007 issue. The firm’s top brass was predictably reluctant to dish any serious dirt about the recent departure of Adrian Smith, designer of the NBC Tower and Trump’s new condominiums, so Pridmore offers a couple of theories about why Smith was shown the door last October: SOM’s New York partners had Smith in their crosshairs, or there was a move to make space for new blood, or a focus on “new modernism” may have pushed Smith to the margins, he argues.
Up-and-coming at the firm, in Pridmore’s view: Design partner Ross Wimer and managing partner Tom Kerwin. At this stage it’s too soon to say if Smith’s new venture, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, focused on sustainability and energy efficiency, will prove competitive with SOM.