Correspondence, journals. memoranda, minutes and reports, drafts of speeches and writings, legal and financial papers, subject file, biographical material, poetry, notes, appointment calendars, charts, graphs, diagrams, clippings, printed matter, photographs, scrapbooks, and other material chiefly dating from 1960 to 1980. The collection documents Owings's career (1936-1983) as a founding partner of the architectural firm, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with home offices in San Francisco, Calif., and field offices elsewhere; as chairman of public commissions responsible for the redesign of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.; as a member of various commissions relating to conservation, preservation, and redevelopment in California; and as an author of works on the aesthetic and practical applications of architecture in contemporary life, architectural theory, and city planning. Includes material relating to his service on or contribution to the California Advisory Committee on a Master Plan for Scenic Highways, the Monterey coast master plan, the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation, and the President's Council on Pennsylvania Avenue. Other papers relate to Owings's books, The American Aesthetic (1969) and The Spaces In Between: An Architect's Journey (1973) and to his winning the 1983 American Institute of Architects' Gold Medal.

Correspondents include Ansel Adams, Stephen Davison Bechtel, Jerry Brown, Wolf von Eckardt, Arthur J. Goldberg, Lady Bird Johnson, Robert Moses, Daniel P. Moynihan, Elwood R. Quesada, David Rockefeller, Nicholas Roosevelt, Wallace Earle Stegner, and Stewart L. Udall.