Helmut Jahn.Photo: Frank Rumpenhorst/picture alliance via Getty
Prolific architect Helmut Jahn, who designed some of the world’s most recognizable buildings, died on Saturday in a bike accident. He was 81.
Jahn’s skyscraping designs have been a fixture of city skylines for more than five decades, and some of his most notable works include the J. Edgar Hoover Building and 1999 K Street in Washington, D.C., Liberty Place in Philadelphia, Thyssenkrupp Tower in Rottweil, Germany, the Sony Center in Berlin, the James R. Thompson Building in Chicago and the colorful United Airlines terminal at O’Hare International Airport.
James R. Thompson Center.Raymond Boyd/Getty
When his Messeturm opened in Frankfurt in the late ’80s, it was the tallest building in Europe, according to theChicago Tribune.
“Jahn was one of the most inventive Chicago architects whose impact on the city — from the skyline to the O’Hare tunnel — will never be forgotten,” Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot wrote onTwitter. “His architectural footprint will be felt & seen across the globe for generations to come. I extend heartfelt prayers to his family.”
Born in Nuremberg, Germany, Jahn graduated from the Technische Hochschule in Munich before moving to the U.S. to study architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, according to hiswebsite.
In 1967, he began working at C.F. Murphy Associates, which he went on to buy in 1983 and rename after himself, according to a 1985GQcover story.
“I thought I could make better buildings than the buildings I saw, which wasn’t hard,” he said.
Blair Kamin, theTribune’s former architecture critic, told the outlet Jahn was a “dashing star of an architect” whose contributions to his field were immeasurable.
“He was renowned as much for his persona as for his architecture, but his architecture was always exceptional,” Kamin said. “And, as time went on, he was regarded as less of a ‘Flash Gordon’ character and more of a modernist master.”
“The greatest part of your life is your work. If you do better in your work, you have a better life,” he toldGQin 1985. “People always boo [John] McEnroe and he always wins. Right? I don’t mind someone criticizing because he does just the same favor as someone who praises you. Controversy is good. I’d rather have people talk about our buildings than say, ‘Well, that’s just another building that I didn’t see.'”
Jahn was married to Deborah Lampe, and they had a son, Evan, theTribunereported.
In addition to his designs, he also taught at University of Illinois Chicago Campus, and was the Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Design at Harvard University, the Davenport Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at Yale University and Thesis Professor at IIT, according to his website.
source: people.com
