Upon arriving in College Station, however, he says he was surprised to learn that, in those days, two years of service in the Corps of Cadets was compulsory. “I looked at schools in Texas, Arizona, California and Illinois where I had contacts and family and decided that A&M was least expensive and I liked the program,” he said. He wound up at Texas A&M in 1962, in part, because he had a brother in the Air Force stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. Though born in Chicago, Smith moved with his family at age 5 to San Clemente, Calif. Additionally, the current sixth-tallest building in the world, Chicago’s Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower), is in the early stages of a green retrofit under the direction of AS+GG. When Nanjing Greenland Financial Center finishes construction this year in Nanjing, China (it will enter the tall buildings list at #6), Smith will have designed four of the world’s top 10 tallest completed buildings. Smith worked at SOM for almost 40 years, advancing through the ranks and eventually serving as chief executive officer from 1992 – 95, before leaving in 2006 to start his own Chicago-based firm, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture.Ĭurrently he is the designer of three of the world’s top 10 tallest completed buildings: Burj Khalifa in Dubai (#1), Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago (#7, at 423 meters or 1387.7 feet) and Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai (#8, at 421 meters or 1381.2 feet), according to the official rankings of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. It was the job and its promise, he said, that ultimately kept him from returning to Texas A&M to finish his architectural studies. It was designed to lift the spirits of a nation and a culture, and to bring joy and inspiration to its citizens,” said Smith, who designed the structure that formally opened last month while working in the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the same firm that offered the aspiring young architect that job back in 1967.

“The Burj Dubai, now Burj Khalifa, was designed not for ego gratification or to fulfill a list of superlatives. “It was the culmination of many years of work and one of the most thrilling moments of my career,” said Smith, 65, who studied architecture at Texas A&M University for four years spanning 1962-66 before being lured by a summer internship to Chicago, where he eventually landed a job, finished his degree and went on to become the world’s most experienced designer of supertall buildings. It was he who designed the shimmering spire that soars more than a half mile above the desert in the United Arab Emirates, rising to an official height of 828 meters, or 2,716.5 feet.

When the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, officially opened in Dubai amid a flurry of fanfare, former Texas A&M architecture student Adrian Smith was among the honored guests.

Adrian smith architect