1 · POSITION
Adrian Smith gave hotels a distinct place inside some of the largest buildings of their time. At Jin Mao in Shanghai, guest rooms rise around an immense interior void. In Dubai, the Armani hotel occupies part of Burj Khalifa, sharing an address with apartments and offices. In Chicago, hotel and residential accommodation stand above terraces descending to the river. Each building makes a different connection between a private stay and the surrounding city. [3–8]
His contribution to hospitality is best understood through those connections. Height supplies the conditions; architecture determines what a guest encounters within them.
2 · A CAREER AT SOM
Smith studied at Texas A&M before receiving his architecture degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1969. He became a Design Partner in SOM's Chicago office in 1980, serving in that role until 2003 and as Consulting Design Partner until 2006. Jin Mao, Burj Khalifa and the Chicago Trump tower belong to this period of practice. [1]
The firm matters to the story. These buildings required design architects, structural engineers, local architects and large delivery teams. Smith provided architectural leadership within that organisation. Their engineering and construction were collective achievements.
3 · THE CLIENT WHO WANTED EIGHTY EIGHT FLOORS
In a retrospective account of Jin Mao, Smith recalled asking his client why the programme required a single 88-storey building. Separate office and hotel blocks were possible. The answer lay in the significance of the number eight in Chinese culture. A commercial brief already contained a cultural ambition before Smith gave it architectural form. [2]
He described his approach as Global Contextualism: contemporary buildings drawing on the circumstances and traditions of their setting. Jin Mao's stepped outline brought that idea to a skyscraper, recalling the upward rhythm of a pagoda without reconstructing an old building at a larger scale. [2, 3]
4 · A HOTEL ABOVE THE OFFICES
Completed in 1999, Jin Mao placed its hotel above the office floors. At the transition between the two programmes, the building's core changes into an open atrium. The organisation of the tower makes the hotel a recognisable interior world. The Skyscraper Museum credits SOM and identifies the Shanghai Institute of Architectural Design & Research as architect of record. [3]
Grand Hyatt Shanghai occupies floors 54 to 87. Its 33-storey atrium gives guests two directions in which to look: across the city through the exterior glazing, and down through the shared space around which the hotel is arranged. Height becomes an experience inside the building as well as a view from it. [4]
5 · BURJ KHALIFA
Burj Khalifa opened in 2010 as a mixed-use building commissioned by Emaar. Its 828-metre height required architecture and structural engineering to develop together. SOM describes three wings arranged around a buttressed central core, with setbacks that change the tower's profile as it rises and help control wind effects. [5]
The hotel is one part of this larger composition. Keeping that proportion clear makes Smith's role easier to understand: he helped shape the building that gives the hotel its extraordinary address, while the hotel's own designers determined a more intimate environment within it.
6 · ARMANI INSIDE THE TOWER
Armani Hotel Dubai brings Giorgio Armani's design identity into Burj Khalifa. Its rooms, restaurants and public interiors belong to a fashion house's interpretation of hospitality, housed within SOM's architecture. The operator describes 160 rooms and suites. [6]
For a guest, these identities coexist. The tower establishes arrival, scale and recognition; the hotel establishes the atmosphere of a room and the character of a meal. Smith's architectural contribution is substantial without absorbing Armani's interior authorship.
7 · RETURNING TO THE CHICAGO RIVER
Trump International Hotel & Tower brought Smith's work in mixed-use towers back to Chicago. The Chicago Architecture Center dates the building to 2009 and explains its setbacks through their relationship to neighbouring landmarks, including the Wrigley Building, Marina City and 330 North Wabash. The immense volume responds to an existing skyline at several heights. [8]
At its base, landscaped terraces descend towards the river and a pedestrian promenade. Smith's project account also describes the glazed entrance canopy and vehicle ramp. These are the parts of a tower encountered before a guest reaches an elevated room: the approach from the street, the transition from car to lobby, and the connection with the riverbank. [7]
8 · A NEW PRACTICE
In 2006 Smith established Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture. The later practice broadened his work on the relationship between building form, climate and energy use. Its account of his career now identifies him as Founding Partner Emeritus and records his retirement in 2024. [1]
The change of practice gives the portfolio a clear chronology. Earlier SOM commissions remain SOM work even when shown on the later firm's website as part of Smith's career. Waldorf Astoria Beijing belongs to the subsequent collaborative practice.
9 · BEIJING AT A DIFFERENT SCALE
For Waldorf Astoria Beijing, AS+GG worked with a 50-metre height restriction and a demanding urban site. Its project account describes an exterior wall and superframe using bronze, pronounced eaves and symmetry to interpret Chinese architectural traditions. The team also retained an old tree at the entrance. [9]
Bay windows make the façade relevant to the occupation of the rooms. Their depth and screens create places from which to look into the city. This is a smaller-scale version of a recurring concern in Smith's hotel work: the relationship between a building's outward composition and the guest's position within it.
The published credits identify COFCO as client, Beijing Institute of Architectural Design as associate architect and Yabu Pushelberg as interior designer. [9]
10 · WHAT CONNECTS THE HOTELS
Jin Mao's atrium, the Armani address within Burj Khalifa, Chicago's river terraces and Beijing's bay windows operate at very different scales. Together they show the range of architectural decisions that can give a hotel its character before its service programme begins.
The common concern is how temporary accommodation belongs to a larger place. A hotel can occupy a tower without becoming anonymous within it; an imposing exterior can also contain an identifiable world for its guests. That relationship is the strongest thread through Smith's hospitality work.
11 · ⚑ CANDOUR
This profile covers selected completed projects. It does not establish Smith as the inventor of the atrium hotel or the hotel-and-residential tower, and the sources do not trace a specific hospitality model from him to named followers.
Architects' accounts explain intentions and credits; operator pages describe the hotels. They do not establish guest satisfaction, financial success or whole-life environmental performance. The profile distinguishes original architecture from interior design and does not attribute later alterations without project-specific evidence. No personal registry number has been assigned.