FEATURE Image: View from the west,Steuben Club Building/Randolph Tower, 188 W. Randolph Street, Chicago. The building’s telescoping tower anticipates the design direction of the firm’s celebrated 1 North LaSalle Street Building completed in 1930. August 2021. Author’s photograph. 12.72mb_9354 (1)
The Steuben Club Building, later known as Randolph Tower, embodies a pivotal moment in Chicago skyscraper design when architects Karl M. Vitzthum and John J. Burns were moving from traditional historic styles toward a more vertically expressive modern skyscraper aesthetic. The building stands as both a significant product of late-1920s Chicago architecture and a precursor to the firm’s even more monumental work, especially the 1 North LaSalle Building.
The 1929 limestone tower whose shape may be the last surviving skyscraper reflective of the 1923 zoning law with setbacks and a telescoping tower presages Vitzthum & Burns’ mighty 1 N. LaSalle Street Building in 1930. Randolph Tower was restored in 1993 by Stenbro, Ltd. and in 2013 opened as the residences of Randolph Tower City. In addition to its 15-story tower, the building is 27 stories tall and 465 feet high built on rock caissons. German-born Karl Martin Vitzthum (1880-1967) and John Joseph Burns (1886-1956) built some of Chicago’s best-known skyscrapers of the 1920s and 1930s. The firm also built, in 1953, St. Peter’s Church in the Loop at 110 W. Madison Street two doors down from the corner skyscraper of 1 N. LaSalle Street Building. Karl M. Vitzhum was architect on the Midland Hotel (then the Midland Club Building ). Built in 1927, it is 22 stories of roaring 1920’s Beaux-Arts architecture.
Karl Martin Vitzthum (1880-1967). One of the architects of the Steuben Club Building/Randolph Tower with partner John J. Burns. The skyscrapers they built starting in 1925 until the Great Depression became taller and more vertical as time progressed and are some of the most visible soaring stone structures of the period in downtown Chicago.
Randolph Tower demonstrates the firm’s progression away from Beaux-Arts classicism toward streamlined modernism and greater vertical emphasis. Its massing and setbacks may represent one of the last surviving Chicago skyscrapers reflecting the influence of the 1923 zoning law.
Karl Martin Vitzthum (Architect), Steuben Club Building, Chicago, Illinois, Perspective Randolph Street, 188 West (Building address), 1924-1928, Watercolor and tempera on paper 86 × 35.6 cm (33 7/8 × 14 in.) The Art Institute of Chicago. see – https://www.artic.edu/artworks/158560/steuben-club-building-chicago-illinois-perspective – retrieved September 21, 2024.
With each building the move from classicism to Modernism is clear as well as pure verticality. During the 1980s and 1990’s, I worked in one of Vitzthum & Burns’ mid1920s office buildings in Chicago – The Old Republic Building at 307 North Michigan Avenue built in 1925. My airy office on the 7th floor looked right onto Michigan Avenue where I could admire the Carbide and Carbon Building across the street built in 1929.
At 27 stories and 465 feet tall, it remains a prominent feature of Chicago’s Loop skyline. Vitzthum & Burns were major contributors to Chicago’s architectural identity during the city’s final great skyscraper boom before the Great Depression.
Steuben Club Building/Randolph Tower. August 2021. Author’s photograph. 82% 7.88 mb _9354
Vitzthum arrived in Chicago from Germany in 1914 and worked with architectural firms such as Graham Anderson Probst and White, Burnham & Co., and White, Jarvis & Hunt. He often worked with Fredrick J. Teich (1874- n.a) prior to establishing his own firm with John J. Burns in 1919. Vitzthum was a young architect on Burnham’s staff when he worked on some engineering details for the old Comiskey Park (1910-1990). The partnership of Vitzthum and Burns started in 1919 and ended with Burns’ death in 1956. Though known for eclectic styled bank buildings throughout the Midwest, the pair had built the one-screen 1,000 seat The Hollywood Theatre at Fullerton Avenue and Greenview Avenue in 1926. The theatre closed in 1957 after being renamed the Holly Theatre and was demolished soon afterwards. It is a parking lot today for a local Walgreens across the street from Facets movie theatre.
The building’s restoration in 1993 and residential conversion in 2013 illustrate the adaptive reuse of historic skyscrapers for contemporary urban life.
SOURCES:
Frank A. Randall, History of Development of Building Construction in Chicago, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded by John D. Randall, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1999, pp. 331 and 319.
Saliga, Pauline A., editor, The Sky’s The Limit A Century of Chicago Skyscrapers, Rizzoli New York, 1990, p. 133.
Alice Sinkevitch, AIA Guide to Chicago, 2nd Edition, Harcourt, Inc., Orlando, 2004, p. 84.
FEATURE Image: Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral, 1121 N. Leavitt, Chicago. The walls of the church building are load-bearing brick covered with stucco. The bell tower and octagonal belfry, dome, and roof are made of wood with metal trim and latticework. July 2015. Author’s photograph. 2.80 mb
Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral demonstrates how Louis H. Sullivan (1856-1924), best known for his commercial architecture, adapted his design genius to a modest immigrant church, creating a distinctive synthesis of Russian provincial tradition, Eastern Orthodox worship, and Sullivan’s own ornamental imagination within Chicago’s Ukrainian Village.
Louis H. Sullivan designed the bell tower (above and below) with its ornamentation and eaves and soffits for Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village.
how Louis Sullivan adapted traditional Russian architecture to create the bell tower of Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral The octagonal open lantern where the bells hang is a classic feature of 17th-century Russian wooden architecture, traditionally referred to as an “octagon on a cube” (vosmerik na chetverike). Rising above the open belfry is a steep, grey-shingled tent-shaped roof. This architectural style was historically popular in Russia for its ability to keep heavy snow from piling up on church towers. The Wave-Like Roofline and slender window slats are Sullivanesque. Crowning both the main tent roof of the bell tower and the smaller side turret are brilliant golden onion domes. In Orthodox theology, the onion dome symbolizes a burning candle flame reaching up toward heaven.
Built in 1903 on a limited budget, the church is a relatively small structure whose architectural impact far exceeds its size.
Louis H. Sullivan designed the portal canopy (above) and its ornamentation such as the fretwork. Sullivan also designed the window frames (example below).
Louis H. Sullivan designed key architectural elements of the cathedral, including the bell tower, portal canopy, window frames, and decorative ornament.
Louis Sullivan’s genius directly merges with traditional Russian Orthodox geometry in this window, which serves a vital role in illuminating the church’s interior. The top of the window frame features a uniquely Sullivanesque, multi-tiered, stepped triangular pediment that beautifully complements the sharp lines of the building’s exterior roof eaves. Along the sides, the outer wooden posts feature finely routed parallel grooves and subtle decorative blocks. This style of ornamentation is a hallmark of Sullivan’s organic philosophy—using natural light and shifting shadows to give rigid wood components a rich, rhythmic texture.
Furthermore, each major pane of leaded glass features a complex geometric pattern centered on an octagon. While the octagon served as Sullivan’s favorite transitional shape to bridge the gap between square and circle, it simultaneously held a profound meaning for the Orthodox parish. This eight-pointed geometry carries a deep spiritual resonance, symbolizing the “Eighth Day” of creation (the eternal Kingdom of God) and echoing the architectural octagons found in the cathedral’s main dome and bell tower.
Holy Trinity Cathedral was built on a limited budget. It is a small building at 47 x 98 feet situated on an east-west axis. The main body of the church is square with extensions and an octagonal dome above. The picturesque country-church entrance has a metal and wood canopy whose design and ornamentation were created by the architect, Louis H. Sullivan (1856-1924). Dedicated in 1903, the church was designated a cathedral in 1923.
Prominently featured in the foreground is a traditional Slavic-style wooden cutout Crucifixion scene, known as a Golgotha. Mounted inside an ornate white-and-gold carved wooden kiot (shrine framework) is a distinct icon of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker.
The icons, the painted Golgotha cutout figures, and the surrounding sanctuary murals were painted by artist Genrik Borutsky and his workshop crew between 1902 and 1903.
This exterior view of Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral captures the masterful architectural synthesis achieved by Louis Sullivan in 1903. Commissioned by 28-year-old Saint John Kochurov of Chicago in 1899, Sullivan deliberately blended traditional, rustic Russian provincial church aesthetics with modern American Prairie School and organic design principles.
Rather than grand stone or brick used in churches, Sullivan utilized a rough-textured stucco facade paired with heavy, natural wood ornamentation. Peeking out from the roofline on the left is the wooden octagonal lantern of the bell tower. Its open-air arched windows, multi-tiered flared roof profiles, and crowning golden onion dome are textbook elements of classical Russian Orthodox wooden church design. The deep, dramatic wooden overhang of the roofline supported by exposed structural wood rafters is a hallmark element of both Prairie School architecture. Above the two multi-paned windows are distinct, sharp triangular wooden pediments that are distinctively Sullivanesque. The building’s bell tower is organically shaped around the dome.
The church building was completed for around $27,000 in 1903 (approximately $1 million in 2022) with Sullivan donating half his commission to the church project.
Who is St. John of Chicago (1871-1917)?
After 12 years of fruitful missionary work in the American Midwest—where he helped establish several additional parishes and co-organized early Orthodox mutual aid societies—Father John returned to his native Russia in 1907.
In 1916, he was assigned to serve at St. Catherine’s Cathedral in Tsarskoye Selo, a suburb of St. Petersburg. In October 1917, the violence of the Bolshevik Revolution erupted directly in his town. To ease panic, Father John organized an outdoor prayer procession through the streets, pleading for peace among the warring factions.
On October 31, 1917, Bolshevik forces stormed the town. Because he had prayed publicly for peace rather than endorsing the revolution, Father John was arrested by a Red Guard mob, dragged to the outskirts of town, and shot to death. This tragic event earned him the solemn historical distinction of becoming the proto-hieromartyr (the very first clergyman killed) of the Soviet era.He was officially canonized and glorified as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in December 1994, and his memory is deeply celebrated every October 31st by Orthodox Christians globally, particularly at the cathedral he built in Chicago.
Historic photograph of the interior of Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral in Chicago, originally taken in 1905 by a photographer for the Chicago Daily News. The image captures a service in the cathedral shortly after its completion, with Saint John Kochurov likely visible leading the parish. Public Domain.
Same view over 110 years later. Chicago. Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral. October 2016. Author’s photograph. 6.95 mb
The Eastern Orthodox central plan creates an interior where the congregation stands in a square space topped by an octagonal dome. For Easter services and the like, the cathedral is filled to capacity with parishioners and others spilling out the front door with its decorative canopy onto the public sidewalk.
Painted by Genrik Borutsky between 1902 and 1903 during the initial interior decoration of the Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral in Chicago this mural is an exact full-scale replica of the fresco “The Ecumenical Councils” designed by the legendary Russian master Viktor Vasnetsov between 1885 and 1896 for St. Vladimir’s Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine.
The mural depicts a grouping of the Great Church Fathers and Bishops of the Early Christian Church. In front of a Byzantine domed cathedral is, from left to right, Saint Athanasius the Great (c. 296–373), Patriarch of Alexandria; Saint Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 329–390), Theologian; Saint Basil the Great (c. 330–379), Archbishop of Caesarea; Saint John Chrysostom (c. 347–407), Archbishop of Constantinople; Saint Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335–395) or Saint Cyril of Alexandria; and Saint Nicholas of Myra (c. 270–343).
The congregation was composed largely of immigrants from regions near present-day Ukraine and the Carpathian Mountains.
The parishioners that built this church were rural people who had emigrated from southern Russia near the Ukraine as well as the area of the Carpathian Mountains.
The photograph captures the sanctuary (altar area), the most sacred part of an Orthodox church, situated behind the iconostasis screen and accessible only to clergy.
• The Holy Table (Altar Table): In the foreground sits the square Holy Table, draped in bright red vestments and a gold liturgical stole (epitrachelion). Resting on top are liturgical items, including a heavy book of the Gospels and a hand cross.
• The Seven-Branch Candlestick: Positioned directly behind the Holy Table is an ornate, golden seven-branched candelabra modeled after a tree, flanked by hanging processional banners.
The murals along the curved apse wall represent the Great Hierarchs and Liturgists of the Church, rendered by Genrik Borutsky in 1902–1903 as exact copies of Viktor Vasnetsov’s masterpiece designs. Depicted, left to right, are Saint Gregory of Nazianzus; Saint Basil the Great; Saint John Chrysostom; and Saint Nicholas of Myra.
High above the central gold tabernacle structure is a separate, framed icon depicting the Holy Trinity (the Hospitality of Abraham).
The image depicts Saint Mary Magdalene, as indicated by the Church Slavonic inscription at the bottom: “СВ РАВНОАП МАРIЯ МАГДАЛИНА” (Saint Equal-to-the-Apostles Mary Magdalene). In the Orthodox tradition, her title “Equal-to-the-Apostles” highlights her vital role in proclaiming Christ’s resurrection to the disciples. She carries the alabaster jar she brought to the empty tomb to anoint Jesus’s body.
While the architectural structure of the Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral in Chicago was designed by legendary architect Louis Sullivan, the church’s traditional interior iconography and stenciled murals were executed based on the work of famous Russian artist Viktor Vasnetsov (V. N. Vasnetoff).
Vasnetsov was a leader of the 19th-century Russian revival movement, famed for blending historical Slavic folklore with classic Byzantine iconographic principles. The elaborate decorative borders, geometric framing, and gold accents wrapping around the pillar echo this late 19th-century style rather than Sullivan’s signature secular Art Nouveau ornamentation.
The stenciled artwork (above) is not by Louis H. Sullivan. Rather, the interior murals and iconographic schemes throughout the cathedral were executed by artist Genrik Borutsky and his team. Borutsky did not paint original compositions; instead, he meticulously painted full-scale copies of the monumental frescoes designed by legendary master Viktor Vasnetsov for St. Vladimir’s Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine. Vasnetsov’s influential “Russian Revival” style defined late 19th-century Orthodox art by blending strict Byzantine iconographic rules with softer, emotional realist elements.
The two saints painted on this adjoining corner pillar are St. John the Baptist and St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.
The church stands as one of Sullivan’s most unusual and personal works, distinct from the skyscrapers and commercial buildings that made him famous.
SOURCES:
Chicago Churches and Synagogues: An Architectural Pilgrimage, George Lane, S.J., and Algimantas Kezys, Loyola University Press, Chicago, 1981, p. 106-107.
Alice Sinkevitch, AIA Guide to Chicago, 2nd Edition, Harcourt, Inc., Orlando, 2004, p. 260.
FEATURE image: Helmut Jahn, State of Illinois (Thompson) Center, 100 W. Randolph, Chicago, Illinois, 1979-1985. The Thompson Center was officially bought by Google in 2022 for a reported $105 million. May 2014. Author’s photograph. 4.75 mb
Helmut Jahn was one of the most influential architects in shaping late-20th-century Chicago, blending the legacy of Miesian modernism with bold postmodern experimentation to create buildings that transformed the city’s architectural identity and projected Chicago’s influence onto the world stage.
German-American postmodernist architectHelmut Jahn (1940-2021) is a leading postmodern architect responsible for scores of projects internationally. Retrospective exhibition Helmut Jahn: Life + Architecture held at the Chicago Architecture Center, July 23, 2021, through October 31, 2021. Following his passing in May 2021, the exhibition showcased Jahn’s collaborative engineering process and featured personal items, scaled architectural models, and photography of his work—such as O’Hare International Airport’s Terminal 1. The angled, sail-like canvas banner walls were custom-designed as a subtle nod to Jahn’s passionate love for professional sailboat racing. PHOTO; “Final weekend of the Helmut Jahn exhibit at @chiarchitecture” by reallyboring is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Helmut Jahn arrived in Chicago in 1966, studied at IIT under the influence of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and became a major figure in the city’s architectural development for over five decades.
Helmut Jahn, 1 S. Monroe, 1982. August 2021. 5.56mb DSC_9293 (1)
Introduction.
Helmut Jahn was famous in Chicago and around the world for his prolific postmodern architecture particularly his work in steel and glass.
Born in Germany near Nuremberg, in 1940, Jahn graduated from Technische Hochschule in Munich and moved to Chicago in 1966. Jahn arrived in Chicago just as “downtown development” during the administration of Mayor Richard J. Daley (1902-1976) was finding its greatest momentum. Jahn began to study under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and, in 1967, joined Charles (C.F.) Murphy Associates which later became Murphy/Jahn. The younger man would carry on the powerful influence and energy of these Chicago personalities for building big, creatively, and prolifically for the next fifty years into the first quarter of the 21st century. Jahn would add his own significant contribution and footprint in Chicago and around the nation and world in those same long years of his activity.
One of Jahn’s early projects in his first years in Chicago was McCormick Place. The original concrete and steel permanent exposition hall on the lakefront that opened in 1960 was destroyed in a fire in January 1967, just as Jahn was starting to work as a professional architect. Named for Col. McCormick of the Chicago Tribune, the newspaper owner and publisher had boosted the idea of a permanent exposition hall on Chicago’s lakefront for years prior to his death in 1955.
Jahn’s Chicago career coincided with the city’s continued downtown expansion following landmark projects such as the John Hancock Center and Sears Tower.
Jahn had come to Chicago at an exciting time to be building there — during Jahn’s first years in Chicago the John Hancock Building was completed in 1969 and the Sears Tower, the tallest building in the world for the next 24 years, was completed in 1974. In 1971, C.F. Murphy completed the new and massive McCormick Place, a powerful steel and glass structure with enormous cantilever eaves, on the same lakefront site as the old exposition hall. Out of that single successful building project, Helmut Jahn and the rest of the world saw the significant development in Chicago that would blossom around this important and functional modern architecture over ensuing decades — including the North building constructed across Lake Shore Drive in 1986; the South building built in 1996; a hotel built in 1998; the massive West building built in 2007; and, in 2017, the Wintrust Arena.
In the mid 1980’s one of Jahn’s most significant creations was the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago. Aesthetically grandiose and controversial, the “State of Illinois Building” was put up for sale in 2021 by the administration of Governor J.B. Pritzker, citing its historically high operating and maintenance costs.
Jahn designed the 23-story addition to the Chicago Board of Trade in 1980 and Accenture Tower at 500 W. Madison in the West Loop which opened in 1987. Across the nation and world Helmut Jahn’s fresh, grand, and innovative designs have made their way into the annals of postmodern architecture. Any complete list of Helmut Jahn’s active and completed projects extends necessarily into the many scores. A list of notable buildings could include the 1999 K St. NW, a 12-story structure, in Washington D.C. completed in 2009; the twin 37-story Veers Towers in Las Vegas, Nevada opened in 2010; and, in his native Germany, the 63-story Messeturm in Frankfurt opened in 1990 and the Sony Center, a complex of eight buildings, in Potsdamer Platz in Berlin completed in 2000. The hard-driving list goes on…and on.
In Chicago Jahn designed the exposed steel frame United Airlines Terminal 1 at O’Hare International Airport between 1985 and 1988. Air travelers for decades have enjoyably traversed its entertaining walkway connecting concourses that include moving sidewalks, colorful lighting and futuristic sounds.
At the time of his death at 81 years old on May 8, 2021 in a bike road accident in the far western suburbs of Chicago, Helmut Jahn was working on a 74-story residential building in Chicago at 1000 S. Michigan. It was scheduled to be opened in 2022 but its construction was already delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic that postponed construction. Helmut Jahn taught at IIT, the University of Illinois-Chicago, Harvard University, and Yale University. In 2012 Murphy/Jahn became JAHN and, according to a recent report from Dun & Bradstreet, the firm had a total of 55 employees and generated a little over $6 million in annual sales.
Xerox Center, 55 West Monroe, Chicago, 1977-1980.
In what was one of Helmut Jahn’s first great urban achievements, the 40-story office tower on an important corner in downtown Chicago was built on speculation and soon took the name of its major tenant (Xerox). The sleek and simple curtain wall of enameled off-white fluoropolymer aluminum panels and reflective glass slide over a reinforced concrete structure and around its soft postmodern corners in contrast to the modernist box.
The tower is fitted to its site where the building’s corner is exaggerated at street level with varying glaze percentages, and the white-black-silver palette of the lobby follows a diagonal pattern (also on the roof) in contrast to the exterior curvilinear design.
Silver double-glazed reflective glass pays homage to 1950’s and 1960’s Chicago modernism and the Xerox building’s closest neighbors: the kitty-corner Inland Steel Building (1954-1958, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill) and, directly across to the north, the First National (today, Chase) Bank building (1964-1969, C.F. Murphy Associates with Perkins and Will).
Helmut Jahn (C.F. Murphy Associates)/Murphy Jahn. Xerox Center, 55 West Monroe, Chicago, 1977-1980. December 2014. Author’s photograph. 5.60 mb 99%
Some have observed that Jahn’s curving tower may have been inspired by Louis Sullivan’s 1899 Schlesinger and Mayer department store building on State Street (what became in 1904 Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building and today is The Sullivan Center). The 1980 project’s original conception was for two curvilinear towers though obviously only one was constructed obfuscating and negating the original design’s uniquely bold impacts.
The glass and aluminum are arranged to alternate in horizontal bands which have modernist predecessors in Chicago and Europe. Hidden from the street view are more diagonals that cut a pattern across the roof. The building is a major transition for Jahn who, steeped in mid-20th century Modernism, harkened back to earlier 1920s modernist sources for the 55 W. Monroe (Xerox) building. The author’s photograph was taken on December 24, 2014.
SOURCES for 55 W. Monroe: Building Chicago: The Architectural Masterworks, John Zukowsky, New York: Rizzoli with Chicago History Museum, 2016, p. 237.
AIA Guide to Chicago, 2nd Edition, Alice Sinkevitch, Harcourt, Inc., Orlando, 2004, p. 67.
The Sky’s The Limit: A Century of Chicago Skyscrapers, Jane H. Clarke, Pauline A. Saliga, John Zukowsky, New York: Rizzoli, 1990, p. 233.
Chicago Architecture and Design, 3rd Edition, Jay Pridmore and George A. Larson. New York: Abrams, 2018, pp. 210-211.
Helmut Jahn, Nory Miller, New York: Rizzoli, 1986, pp. 76-81.
Thompson Center, 100 W. Randolph, Chicago, 1979-1985.
Helmut Jahn, State of Illinois (Thompson) Center, 100 W. Randolph, Chicago, Illinois, 1979-1985. The building is massive at 1.15 million square feet. The rounded facade was intended to embody the traditional architectural history of monumental rotundas and domes. When it was built in the early 1980s it was one of the most exciting projects taking place downtown. Sitting across the street from a classical revival City Hall (1911) and a modernist Daley Center (1965), the postmodern 1980’s monstrosity by Murphy/Jahn was criticized for being out of context in the neighborhood. Yet, over the following decades, negative criticism increasingly faded. May 2014. Author’s photograph. 4.75 mb
There were mixed reviews for Helmut Jahn’s massive semi-circular Thompson Center at 100 W. Randolph completed in 1985. The criticism begins at its entrance where Jahn saw placed “Outsider” French artist Jean Dubuffet’s fiberglass Monument with Standing Beast. During the building’s planning and construction some of the architect’s dazzling concepts met with resistance from contractors. For example, the contractors prevailed over Jahn’s idea for a completely locked-down outer skin using silicone glazing. In the final construction the appearance of red, white, and blue locked-down skin belies the several places throughout the design where windows are made to be opened. Inside, though its soaring 17-story atrium is airy and impressive exposing floors that hold various state bureaucracy—and signaling the idea of state government’s day-to-day practice towards transparency — the practicalities of the new building’s heating and cooling design proved seriously problematic during Chicago’s summer heat and winter cold though that major issue appeared to be eventually resolved. In 2021 Jahn’s mega-structure has been put up for sale by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker from Chicago citing that the building costs hundreds of millions of dollars to operate and maintain. The photograph was taken by the author on May 25, 2014.
The State of Illinois Center from the southwest Randolph and LaSalle Streets. Setbacks divide the building into three tiers seen here. August 2021. Author’s phtograph 99% 7.65mb _9369
The pink and gray granite arcade provides a covered street-level passageway and is a contrast to the silver and opaque blue ornamental glass. August 2021. Author’s photograph. 99% 7.22mb_9380
The rotunda with its skylit atrium is 160 feet in diameter. The massive airy space is met by circular walkways and freestanding bank of glass elevators. August 2021. Author’s photograph. 70% 7.87 mb_9381
The rotunda has an elaborately paved granite floor with tens of thosand of square feet of retail space. August 2021. Author’s photograph. 99% 6.87 mb_9384
1 S. Wacker Drive, Chicago, 1982.
Helmut Jahn, One South Wacker Drive, Chicago, Illinois, 1979-1982. On a corner site, Jahn’s design is a freely translated interpretation of a 1920s stepped back tower with the building’s skin a stylized exaggeration of vertical windows and stone facades of the same 1920s’ period structures. May 2014. Author’s photograph. 4.45 mb
To the left is UBS Tower (1 N. Wacker) built in 2001 and to the right is Hyatt Center ( 71 S. Wacker) built in 2005. At 42 years old, Jahn spoke of his building at 1 S. Wacker as a synthesis of two major Chicago architectural styles—that of Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) and, Jahn’s mentor and fellow German, Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969). The building is a concrete stepped-back 50-story building with a curtain wall of dark glass defining the vertical bands of windows. Its vision remains fresh and stunning as it sits majestically between two postmodern buildings built in Chicago a generation later. The author’s photograph was taken on May 25, 2014.
Floors in each section of the stepped back tower are of three different sizes, each six thousand square feet less as the building ascends. The setbacks’ atria allow in natural daylight. August 2021. Author’s photograph. 78% 7.77mb _9293
Helmut Jahn, One South Wacker Drive, Chicago, Illinois, 1979-1982. December 2017. Author’s photograph. 6.27mb DSC_0567 (1)
IIT’s Rowe Village, Chicago, 2005.
Helmut Jahn, Jeanne and John Rowe Village at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago, Illinois, 2003. August 2015. Author’s photograph. 3.67 mb
Jahn’s architecture often drew from Chicago traditions while reinterpreting them through contemporary materials and dramatic forms.
Originally called the State Street Village Dormitories, Jahn’s postmodern structure that anchors the campus to the east, consists of three five-story buildings. Jahn’s design was the first major architectural addition to the IIT campus since the early 1960’s. U.S. News & World Report called it one of the “coolest dorms in the nation.” Stretching one city block along busy State Street from 33rd to 34th Streets, Rowe Village is next to the El tracks whose Green Line zips back and forth to Chicago’s Loop. Each dorm building consists of two wings that flank an interior courtyard. The building is finished at the rear on 34th street by an insulated five-story glass wall. Entry is through the courtyard which leads into a corridor that connects the two wings. It is built of reinforced concrete with the front elevations and roof dressed in custom corrugated stainless steel panels and tinted glass framed in aluminum. The building’s sleek curvature, three compartments and chained block-long length, reflects and evokes the image of a streamlined train making for a building as Art Moderne object in the Miesian tradition. From its rooftop the Rowe Village looks north for views of Chicago’s downtown skyline while the dorm offers suite-style living in a modern setting surrounded by the mind, serious and playful, of Helmut Jahn. The photograph was taken by the author on August 21, 2015.
