“The undisputed crown prince of Chicago architecture” is what they were calling Helmut Jahn 20 years ago. His wife, Deborah, had transformed the hardworking but scruffy German emigre into a glamorous fashion plate worthy of a GQ profile, and Jahn was ready to set the city on its ear with a building for the state of Illinois that people compared to a spaceship and a blue-glassed Northwestern Atrium Center shaped like a cascading waterfall.
Thompson was missed, because he represents a closing of the circle. As possibly the last in a long line of corporate and civic leaders who combined ego, power, and taste to leave an enduring mark on the Chicago skyline, it was Thompson who shot Jahn into the stratosphere by handpicking him to design the State of Illinois Center. Jahn presented the governor with three models, hedging his bets by including two conservative ringers. Thompson went straight for the daring design, and there was no turning back.
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With its sleek curves, cool colors, and tilted-lid roof over a 17-story open-balconied atrium, Jahn’s design made him an international celebrity. It also brought out the sniping. An engineer at local architectural powerhouse Skidmore, Owings & Merrill groused in Crain’s that Jahn was more a sculptor than an architect and that it was clear his designs bore “no engineering input.” Jahn denied the charge, but construction was plagued by problems. When the bids for the building’s massive quantities of glass came in several times over the architect’s estimate, the elegant translucent blue, gray, and white panels he had envisioned wound up being replaced by the far more opaque salmon and robin’s egg blue that have been the object of derision ever since.
The old dorms, for two people, are about 16 by 11 feet. Those at State Street Village are almost double that size and include a shared bathroom. There are also apartment units, where living space is shared but each student has a separate bedroom. The additional space and up-to-date amenities come at a price, however–students will pay about 45 percent more than they do for the older, smaller dorm rooms.
Across 33rd Street, Koolhaas is protecting his student center from the el by placing it above the building in a $9 million tube. Jahn was determined to take another approach. “The building takes this positive attitude that the el is actually part of it,” he says. “It’s not its enemy.”
“Look around here,” Jahn says. “Everything you see is what’s needed on the building, whether it’s the facade, whether it’s the screen, whether it’s the steel or concrete….These are the things we need in a building, these are the most expensive things in a building, and often buildings cover them up, only to resort to cheap ceilings, to paint, to drywall–all the things which don’t look good, don’t wear well, don’t stand up over time.”
