![]() ![]() His projects stood out for their reflection of technology and history, particularly Manhattan Art Deco skyscrapers. In the mid-1970s Jahn joined the young rebellious architects of the Chicago Seven group. But his universal language and almost religious widespread following started attracting questions already a few years after his death in 1969. Jahn came to Chicago at a time when Mies’ reputation was as solid as his steel buildings. O’Hare CTA Station, Chicago (1986) Image: Courtesy of JAHN Foreseeing this, the original architect suggested in his speculative 2015 proposal – giving the building a new life through adaptive reuse and envisioning a new 110-storey tower to anchor the southwest corner. Nothing seems to be able to stop the developers from building bigger, taller, and more money-making structure in this next from the City Hall prime location. It could now be replaced with a tower of more than two million square feet - enough to reach over 100 stories. ![]() The 17-storey, 1.2 million-square-foot structure with the breathtaking full-height, 160-foot-diameter rotunda, was designed to celebrate centrality and transparency of government. There are trees, benches, childlike colossal sculpture Monument with Standing Beast (fiberglass, 1984) by Jean Dubuffet, and multiple options for shortcuts and rare vantage points in the heart of the dense metropolis. This surprising move generously freed up pricey urban land for triangular public plaza. Walking around it on three sides will not reveal anything remarkable but come to the intersection of W Randolph and N Clark streets, the southeast corner, and you will be knocked your feet off by sweeping three tiers of conically curved and angled setbacks. Nicknamed a starship for its futuristic shape, it is the closest structure to the true high-tech style ever built in America, an ecstatic spectacle of space, transparency, light, and colour that occupies the entire city block in Chicago’s central Loop area. Home to offices of the Illinois state government, the dazzling glass and steel structure of Thompson Center reinvented the government building typology. IIT State Street Village, Chicago (2003) Image: Courtesy of JAHN The decision was announced by Governor JB Pritzker, the nephew of Jay Pritzker (1922-99), who in 1979 founded Chicago-based Pritzker Prize, the highest honour in the field of architecture. The structure, barely 35-years-old, unique example of late 20th century American architecture, is now being threatened by demolition. On May 3, just five days before Jahn’s death, following years of negotiations, the state of Illinois, facing hundreds of millions of dollars in the building’s repair, began soliciting bids for its sale. Thompson Center, named so in honour of four-term Illinois Republican Governor, (1977-91) who was brave enough to get it built in 1985. Yet, the architect’s most memorable and easily most controversial project in the city is James R. The charismatic architect, christened by Newsweek “the Flash Gordon of Architecture,” was responsible for more distinguished buildings than any other contemporary master in Chicago – from Xerox Center (1980), Chicago Board of Trade Addition (1983), and United Airlines Terminal (1988) and CTA Station (1984), both at O’Hare International Airport, to Citigroup Center (1987), IIT State Street Village (2003), two buildings at University of Chicago South Campus – Chiller Plant (2010) and Joe and Rika Mansueto Library (2011), and many more. Helmut Jahn, a German-American architect, who was responsible for some of the most iconic buildings in Chicago, his home for 55 years, and in cities across the globe, was killed last Saturday, May 8, when two vehicles struck his bicycle near his home in Campton Hills, a far western suburb of Chicago.
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