[2] Louis Skidmore trained with Cram and Ferguson, a large, established firm in Boston that designed Gothic style buildings.

[3] At night he studied at the Boston Architectural Club creating additional design problems that were critiqued by Harvard and MIT professors.

Winning a prize at the BAC opened the door for Skidmore to attend MIT.

[3] They returned to the United States together where Eloise introduced Skidmore to her brother Nathaniel "Nat" Owings.

During the war years the firm built a number of large housing projects, most notably the initially secret town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

In New York a major wartime project was the Abraham Lincoln Houses, a 14-building complex in Harlem (completed in 1948).

[5][6] He received the highest individual honor for architecture from the American Institute of Architects, the Gold Medal in 1957.