German star architect Helmut Jahn dies at 81
A champion of sustainability, Jahn left behind a legacy of buildings in the US and Germany. DW takes a look back at his career.
An early start in the US
Born in 1940, Jahn studied architecture in Munich and moved to Chicago, Illinois to study with modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1966, but landed a job with well-known architect Charles Murphy. By the 1980s, he had become a star in the business and eventually ran the firm.
Favorite materials
The architect is best known for his work with steel and glass. We wanted to build buildings that combined solid architecture and engineering. A building has to be utilitarian and not just aesthetically pleasing, he told DW in an interview in 2015. This image shows his Cosmopolitan Twarda 2/4 building in Warsaw, Poland.
architecture
Updated 10th May 2021
Helmut Jahn, one of American architecture s most celebrated figures, dies age 81
Written by Oscar Holland, CNNMegan C. Hills, CNN
Helmut Jahn, the architect behind some of America s best-known buildings, has died in a bicycle accident aged 81.
The German-American designer, whose high-profile projects include Liberty Place in Philadelphia and Terminal 1 at Chicago s O Hare International Airport, was involved in a collision with two vehicles Saturday, according to Cameron Hills Police Department in Illinois. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Born in Germany in 1940, Jahn arrived in the US in the mid-1960s to study under the modernist master Ludwig Mies van der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). In 1967, he joined architecture firm C. F. Murphy Associates, which he would later take full ownership of, before renaming it Murphy/Jahn and then simply Jahn.