SOM Journal 4

Since 1936, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill has set the standard for corporate design, producing some of the most iconic buildings of the last century and shaping cities throughout the world. "SOM," a small-format volume, amply illustrated and (of course) beautifully designed, places the firm's production in the context of critical discussion among some of the profession's leading thinkers: artists, engineers, architectural critics and architects themselves. This most recent issue is edited by Diane Ghirardo, influential scholar of social spaces and professor of architectural history and theory, the author of four books and many essays including "Surveillance and Spectacle in Ferrara Fascista, Architecture of Deceit, Eisenman's Bogus Avant-Garde" and "The Case for Letting Malibu Burn."