From Mental Floss, July 21:
Fazlur Khan and the idea that would turn architecture on its head.
In December 1965, the psychic Jeane Dixon made a prediction: Chicago’s John Hancock Center would come tumbling down. The astrologer and syndicated columnist had risen to fame after predicting the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and now she foresaw the demise of the Windy City’s newest, and soon-to-be tallest, skyscraper—before construction had even begun.
When Dixon spoke out, crews had just broken ground on a plot of land north of Chicago’s main business district. Those involved may not have admitted it, but the prediction likely made them nervous—and not just because of Dixon’s track record. The 100-story building was to become the second-tallest structure in the world, and its radical design was unprecedented.
Structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan, the man behind that design, was only 35 years old when he submitted his plans. He had worked at the Chicago architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) for just a decade. For the architecture world, he was remarkably young. But if he was wet behind the ears, he didn’t show it.
Khan’s easygoing nature was legendary among his colleagues. And he had his own read on the future. At upper-crust Chicago parties, he’d entertain high-society women by reading palms and telling fortunes, a trick he’d learned as a boy growing up in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Khan was unmoved by Dixon’s prediction. A tumbling John Hancock Center would end his career, but he had worked hard to prove the integrity of his design, and no newspaper astrologer could convince him otherwise.
Then, one day in March 1966, he received a phone call: His skyscraper was sinking....
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