architect Helmut Jahn 81 dies May 8th in bicycle accident

[Paul Ringstrom]

https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists ... son-center

[outside in]

this is truly sad, but I must admit going out on your bicycle at age 81 is an accomplishment!

[SDR]

https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/articl ... 163538.php



The Sun-Times writer suggests that Mies might count as a Brutalist ? If so, the term has lost its meaning.

At 78 I ride, a little, and carefully, without a helmet. I go behind people and cars, not in front of them: courtesy, as a self-defense ? I try to drive that way, too. Many bicyclists ride in the city as if they were on the track. I hope that's not what architect Jahn was doing.

S

[toastedskin]

Sad:

https://abc7chicago.com/helmut-jahn-chi ... /10603610/

Jahn, 81, was struck Saturday afternoon while riding north on a village street in Campton Hills, about 55 miles west of Chicago. Jahn failed to stop at a stop sign at an intersection and was struck by the two vehicles, headed in opposite directions, Campton Hills Police Chief Steven Miller said in a news release.

[SDR]

https://www.jahn-us.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Jahn

https://www.google.com/search?client=op ... 07&bih=983

S

[Roderick Grant]

I recall when the James R. Thompson Center (formerly State of Illinois Center) was completed. It got a lot of coverage in the architectural press, similar to Michael Graves' Portland Building, but more deserving. I saw it in 1988, and was duly impressed. The movement in architecture could have followed Jahn, rather than Graves, a that point. It took the wrong path.

[DRN]

I saw it in 1988, and was duly impressed. The movement in architecture could have followed Jahn, rather than Graves, a that point. It took the wrong path.

If the architectural press and thence the profession followed Graves in the mid to late 1980s it did not last long...by 1988 Mildred Schmertz et al were pushing the contortions and poke you in the eye shrapnel of the Deconstructivists. That is still with us today in some respects.

Jahn designed a laudable skyscraper in Philadelphia in the mid 1980’s that dispensed with informal height restrictions in center city. He thought what Philadelphia needed was a skyline...he designed a building reminiscent of VanAlen’s Chrysler building:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Place

[SDR]

In San Francisco we wish the 1989 Marriott Marquis had been of the quality of the Liberty Place towers. Instead we're stuck with what everyone calls the "Wurlitzer Building". . .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Franc ... tt_Marquis

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ardens.jpg

S

[Paul Ringstrom]

The State of Illinois building is universally disliked by all who work there. The large atrium is noisy and the air-conditioning never worked properly. It will probably be torn down by the next owner.

[outside in]

Helmut's unfortunate and untimely death has added more fuel to the fire for the "save the state of Illinois building" preservationists. It is a very impressive urban space, I'll admit, but the building is a gigantic energy hog, and any preservation scheme would have to include replacing single-glazed curtain wall with insulating glass as well as a number of other maintenance/rehab projects. The costs would be outrageous.