Milo Ketchum Jr. and the Exploration of Form

This paper will document the importance of the structural engineer Milo Ketchum Jr. We assess Ketchum’s historical significance using the tools of our own structural engineering tradition, namely qualitative and quantitative critiques of his buildings and his ideas. We present an overview of Ketchum’s career to familiarize the reader with this outstanding individual and to demonstrate his ability to contribute significantly to both the practical and the academic sides of structural engineering. We close the paper by summarizing a new detailed study of a well-documented hypar that Ketchum investigated.