Helmut Jahn

Life and career

Jahn was born in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1940, and grew up watching the reconstruction of the city, which had been largely destroyed by Allied bombing campaigns. After attending the Technical University of Munich from 1960 to 1965, he worked with Peter C. von Seidlein for a year. In 1966, he emigrated to Chicago to further study architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, leaving school without earning his degree.

In 1967, he joined C. F. Murphy Associates as a protégé of Gene Summers and was appointed Executive Vice President and Director of Planning and Design of the firm in 1973. Taking sole control from 1981, the firm was renamed Murphy/Jahn, although the aged Murphy had retired (dying a few years later, in 1985).

Generally inspired by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, yet opposed to the doctrinal application of modernism by his followers, in 1978, Jahn became the eighth member of the Chicago Seven. Despite a rocky start when the roof of his first major project Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri collapsed in 1979, Jahn established his pre-eminent reputation in 1985 with the State of Illinois Center in Chicago which prompted him to be dubbed "Flash Gordon.".

Jahn has grown the business into a global architectural practice that consistently ranks among top 20 United States architectural firms in terms of gross annual billings. In addition to the main seat in Chicago, the company has offices in Berlin and Shanghai.

On October 26, 2012, Helmut Jahn renamed Murphy/Jahn to simply JAHN and announced that he will share design leadership at the firm with architect Francisco Gonzalez Pulido, a partner and president of JAHN.

Completed projects

Following is a partial list of completed projects [2] [3] [4]:

1974 Kemper Arena, Kansas City, Missouri

1976 Kansas City Convention Center, also known as H. Roe Bartle Exhibition Hall, Kansas City, Missouri

1976 Auraria Learning Resources Center, Auraria Higher Education Center, Denver, Colorado

1976 John Marshall Courts Building, Richmond, Virginia

1977 Michigan City Public Library, Michigan City, Indiana ([5])

1977 Saint Mary's College Athletic Facility, Notre Dame, Indiana (pictures)

1978 W.W. Grainger Headquarters, Skokie, Illinois

1978 Rust-Oleum Corporation International Headquarters, Skokie, Illinois

1978 La Lumiere Gymnasium, La Porte, Indiana

1979 Imperial Bank Tower Costa Mesa, California

1980 Horizon Bank (515 5th Street Bank) Michigan City, Indiana

1980 Xerox Centre, (55 West Monroe St) Chicago

1981 United States Post Office, Oak Brook, Illinois

1981 De La Garza Career Center, East Chicago, Indiana

1981 Commonwealth Edison Company District Headquarters, Bolingbrook, Illinois

1982 Argonne Program Support Facility, Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois

1982 Eagle River Vacation House (The Jahn House) Eagle River, Illinois

1982 Area 2 Police Headquarters, Chicago

1982 Chicago Board of Trade Addition Chicago

1982 One South Wacker Chicago

1983 Agricultural Engineering Sciences Building Addition University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois

1983 Learning Resources Center, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Illinois

1983 First Source Centre, South Bend, Indiana [6]

1983 11 Diagonal Street, Johannesburg, South Africa [7]

1984 Plaza East Office Towers, Milwaukee

1984 Shand Morgan Corporate Headquarters, Evanston, Illinois

1984 701 Building (Craig-Hallom Building), Minneapolis

1984 O'Hare 'L' Station, O'Hare International Airport, Chicago

1985 James R. Thompson Center, Chicago

1985 362 West Street, Durban, South Africa

1986 Parktown Stands 102, 103, 85, 879, Johannesburg, South Africa

1986 MetroWest Office Building (2 Energy Center), Naperville, Illinois[8]

1986 Oakbrook Terrace Tower, Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois[9]

1987 Park Avenue Tower, New York City [10]

1987 425 Lexington Avenue, New York City [11]

1987 United Airlines Terminal 1 at O'Hare International Airport, Chicago

1987 Citicorp Center (500 W Madison Street), Chicago

1987 America Apartments - 300 East 85th Street, New York, NY [12]

1987 One Liberty Place, Philadelphia

1987 Cityspire, New York City [13]

1987 Citigroup Center, Chicago

1988 Wilshire/Westwood, Los Angeles

1989 Trade Hall 1 (Halle 1), Frankfurt, Germany

1990 Bank of America Tower, Jacksonville, Florida [14]

1990 Two Liberty Place, Philadelphia [15]

1991 One America Plaza, San Diego [16]

1991 Messeturm, Frankfurt, Germany [17]

1992 120 North LaSalle, Chicago, Illinois [18]

1993 Hitachi Tower, Singapore [19]

1993 Caltex House, Singapore

1994 Hotel Kempinski, Munich, Germany

1994 Kurfürstendamm 70, Berlin, Germany

1996 Fortis Bank Tower (Blaak 555), Rotterdam, Netherlands

1996 Principal Financial Group Corporate Four Building, Des Moines, Iowa [20]

1997 RCID Administration Building, Buena Vista, Florida

1998 Generale Bank Nederland, Rotterdam, Netherlands

1999 European Union Charlemagne building, Brussels, Belgium

1999 Munich Airport Center, Germany

2000 Sony Center Berlin, Germany

2000 Cologne Bonn Airport, Cologne, Germany

2000 HA·LO Headquarters (presently the headquarters of Shure), Niles, Illinois

2000 Imperial Bank Tower Renovation, Costa Mesa, California

2001 Neues Kranzler Eck, Berlin, Germany

2002 Kaufhof Galeria, Chemnitz, Germany

2002 Shanghai International Expo Centre, Shanghai, China

2002 Bayer AG Konzernzentrale

2003 Deutsche Post Tower, Bonn, Germany

2003 IIT Student Housing, Chicago

2003 Highlight Munich Business Towers, Munich, Germany

2004 Mannheimer Corporate Headquarters, Mannheim, Germany

2004 Merck Serono Headquarters (Horizon Serono), Geneva, Switzerland

2005 Focus Media Center (Deutsche-Med-Platz), Rostock, Germany

2006 Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok, Thailand

2006 Seminaris Campus Hotel, Berlin, Germany

2007 Margot and Harold Schiff Residences, Chicago

2007 600 North Fairbanks, Chicago, USA

2008 Hegau Tower, Singen, Germany

2009 South Campus Chiller Plant, University of Chicago Chicago [21]

2009 1999 K Street, Washington, D.C. [22]

2010 Hafen Tower (Sign Tower), Speditionstrasse 1-3 Düsseldorf, Germany [23]

2010 Veer Towers, Paradise, Nevada USA

2010 Weser Tower, Bremen, Germany [24]

2011 Joe and Rika Mansueto Library, Chicago, USA [25]

2012 Leatop Plaza, Guangzhou, China

2014 Cosmopolitan Twarda 2/4, Warsaw, Poland

2015 50 West Street, New York City, USA

Awards

1991 - "Ten Most Influential Living American Architects" from the American Institute of Architects.

1993 - "Outstanding Achievement/Architect Award" from the American Academy of Art, Chicago.

1994 - "Bundesverdienstkreuz Erster Klasse" of the Federal Republic of Germany.

2002 - Institute Honour Award of the American Institute of Architects for the Sony Center.

2005 - Murphy/Jahn, Inc. recipient of the AIA Architecture Firm Award.

Yachting

Jahn has an interest in yachting, and in the late 1990s owned at least three yachts named Flash Gordon (one of his nicknames). In 1995, Jahn's Flash Gordon 2 won the annual Chicago to Mackinac Race, the oldest freshwater yacht race in the world. In 1997, Flash Gordon 3 won the Admiral's Cup.