1896-1975
Architect

Founder of SOM.

In 1939 John Ogden Merrill joined architects Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings to found Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), one of America's foremost architectural firms. Best known for designing large office buildings, the firm was noted for its sophisticated, artful handling of big buildings for big institutions and businesses and for its use of glass- and metal-curtain walls.

Training.

Merrill was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1896. He attended the University of Wisconsin from 1915 to 1917, when service in World War I interrupted his studies; he served as an officer in the army until 1919. After the war he transferred to the architecture school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated in 1921. He worked in various offices and a short time for the Federal Housing Authority. In 1939 he joined Skidmore and Owings in their partnership. Architect of the Manhattan Project. In 1942 Merrill moved...