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(b. Nuremberg, Germany 1940)
Helmut Jahn was born in Nuremberg in 1940.
From 1960 to 1965 he trained at the Technische Hochschule in Munich, after
which he emigrated to the U.S. where he spent a year at the Illinois
Institute of Technology studying under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. In 1967
he joined the office of C.F. Murphy Associates and six years later became
partner and Director of Design. The practice was renamed Murphy/Jahn in
1981.
During the 1960s the firm designed some of
the more distinguished buildings in Chicago using a vocabulary of Miesian
geometry. In later works Jahn's rigid adherence to pure Modernist doctrine
lessened as he began to embrace an architectural philosophy which stressed
the intuitive nature of creative rationalism. This shift led to a more
flexible approach to design and signalled a decisive break with the
unchallenged ideology of the Modernist past.
Using a "variable, wide-ranging
architectural language" to describe a buildings' contextual
relationship, Jahn generated a symbolic code which could be appreciated by
both professional architects and the general public.
References
Dennis Sharp. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Architects and Architecture.
New York: Quatro Publishing, 1991. ISBN 0-8230-2539-X. NA40.I45. p81.
Murphy/Jahn
35 East Wacker Drive
Chicago
Illinois 60601
USA
vox 312.427.7300
fax 312 332 0274 |