![architect helmut jahn architect helmut jahn](https://live.staticflickr.com/2477/3905189861_146ef05d80_z.jpg)
He was a good listener."Īn honest and opinionated speaker, Jahn "was always a better listener," adds Wood. "On one hand, he could be very outspoken. "You knew if he was in the room, even if he didn't say anything," Esposito says of Jahn. Not all famed architects were as welcoming to others' opinions. I'd rather have people talk about our buildings than say, 'Well, that's just another building that I didn't see.'" "I don't mind someone criticizing, because he does just the same favor as someone who praises you," Jahn told GQ magazine in May 1985, when he graced the cover wearing a wide-brimmed, gray fedora. The state now wants to sell it, which means it could be razed. With its sloping glass facade, asymmetric design and colorful panels, the building made an impact. Thompson Center, the governmental office building for which he was awarded the 1986 Distinguished Building Award of the American Institute of Architects' Chicago chapter.
![architect helmut jahn architect helmut jahn](https://cdnassets.hw.net/0c/bd/cb971b6845efa33382782d223fe8/betsky-jahn-thompsoncenter-01.jpg)
One of Jahn's most controversial designs is the James R. Murphy Associates in 1967, Jahn's first major project was the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri, which has hosted political conventions, an Elvis Presley concert and sporting events, survived a partial roof collapse during a major windstorm, and now is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.Įmbracing the idea of designing public buildings, Jahn created the One Liberty Place skyscraper in Philadelphia, the open-air Sony Center in Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, the kaleidoscopic, neon tunnel in the United Airlines Terminal at O'Hare, the Cosmopolitan residential tower in Warsaw, the Cityspire and Park Avenue Tower in Manhattan, the split oval towers of Post Tower in Bonn, Germany, and the 10-story office complex at 55 Shuman Blvd. "This was a place where he could exercise his ideas." He caught that wave and never stopped," Wood says. "He came at a perfect time to see Chicago firing on all cylinders. He came to Chicago in 1966 on a Rotary Foundation scholarship to study architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology. The Chicago Architecture Center exhibition, "part of an international outpouring of appreciation for Jahn's legacy," features models, sketches and the stories behind 140 of his projects worldwide, as well as testimonials from people who knew him.īorn in the German town of Zirndorf near Nuremberg, the son of a teacher and a housewife, Jahn studied architecture at the Technical University of Munich. Jahn blazed an architectural trail for half a century with works indicative of modernism, postmodernism steel and glass, and uniquely Jahn. Charles, where his equestrian wife, Deborah Jahn, built a reputation for world champion Saddlebred horses and Hackney ponies.
![architect helmut jahn architect helmut jahn](https://www.chicagotribune.com/resizer/-kfglIxI-YMgZLGYoaeblNlqJHI=/1200x0/top/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-tronc.s3.amazonaws.com/public/DGACCO4QYVFCRCCEL7GPS67ODQ.jpg)
The accident was not far from his historic Seven Oaks Farm in St. Helmut Jahn, 81, was killed May 8 when the bicycle he was riding was hit by two cars after apparently he pedaled through a stop sign in Campton Hills. His only child, Evan Jahn, vice president of the firm, has a master's degree in environmental management and sustainability, and managed his father's sailing team. A world champion sailor, Jahn named his boat Flash Gordon, and a miniature model of that ship still is visible in the third-story window of his office at the Chicago headquarters of JAHN, the architectural firm. Jahn eventually warmed up to the idea of being Flash Gordon, the futuristic space hero of comic strips, television and movies.