Who

One of corporate America's favorite architects, Childs is a partner at the powerhouse architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

Backstory

After graduating from Yale's school of architecture and working on a handful of government-commissioned jobs in Washington, Childs was tapped by SOM co-founder Nathaniel Owings to establish the firm's D.C. office in 1971. He spent the next decade cutting his teeth on projects like the National Geographic headquarters, new offices for U.S. News & World Report, and a master plan for the Washington Mall, before transferring to SOM's New York headquarters in 1984. He's since established himself as one of the most prolific architects around with a long list of big-ticket commercial projects to his name: He designed Worldwide Plaza, the massive office/condo complex in Hell's Kitchen; the New York Mercantile Exchange in Battery Park City; Bear Stearns's new corporate headquarters on Madison Avenue; and a 50-story tower for Mort Zuckerman's Boston Properties in Times Square. Over the years, Childs has also tackled airports (in New York, Toronto, and Tel Aviv), courthouses, embassies and schools—including two structures for his very own alma mater, Deerfield Academy.

Of note

Childs is responsible for designing two of the most talked-about developments of the past half decade. William Mack and Steve Ross hired him to design the double-towered Time Warner Center, which houses luxury hotel The Mandarin Oriental, a high-end shopping mall, and some of the priciest condos in the city. Childs is also the man behind the design of Larry Silverstein's 7 World Trade Center, which opened its doors in 2006. Amid a good deal of controversy, Silverstein also tapped Childs to design the Freedom Tower—the centerpiece of the new World Trade Center and a commission that former Governor George Pataki insisted go to Daniel Libeskind. (The two are now collaborating on the project; Childs is the one who handles the actual architecting while Libeskind blabbers to the media about "memory" and "loss.") Other upcoming projects include developer Sheldon Solow's proposed suite of office and residential towers in the East 30s and 40s, which is currently awaiting approval from the city, and the long-awaited (but not-definitely-happening) Moynihan Station.

Word on the street

Critics have argued that Childs's work is uninspired, but he's long been a favorite with developers. Why the split? Childs has a reputation for avoiding excessively edgy designs, and he steers clear of architectural mumbo jumbo (which means a CEO is never going to hear him talk about "intersticing a building's vertices"). His no-nonsense, businesslike approach to architecture hasn't endeared him to industry purists, but it's earned him plenty of fans in the boardroom.

Board game

Childs is on the board of the MoMA, along with Dick Parsons, Jerry Speyer, Ron Lauder, Agnes Gund, Sid Bass, and William Mack, among others.

Personal

Childs and his wife, Anne, have four kids—Katie, Joshua, Jocelyn, and Nick—and live on the Upper East Side.