Chicago’s postmodern architect
With great sadness I learned of the news of Helmut Jahn succumbing to a fatal bicycle accident on May 8, 2021 in rural Illinois at the age of 81.
Architects tend to be long-living. Oscar Niemeyer, the architect of Brasilia, passed away at the tender age of 104; and Frank Lloyd Wright at 91 in the year his Guggenheim Museum was inaugurated, 1959. Jahn was certainly far from retirement when he perished, and at the top of his game.
The Chicago based architectural firm of Murphy/Jahn, later called Jahn Architects (with principal Helmut Jahn at the steers), designed the United Airlines Terminal and underground concourse of Chicago O’Hare Airport (1986), but their most stunning object is Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport (2006), a feat of archi-engineering – the firm’s specialty.
In 2015, during an architectural conference in the city of Chicago, I went to visit Jahn’s famed headquarters on the third floor at 35 East Wacker Drive – The Jewelers’ Building – in order to get the permission to use the company’s official photographs of Suvarnabhumi Airport for my PhD publication. The Jeweler’s Building (1927, Giaver and Dinkelberg) was constructed in the famed neoclassical and neo-Renaissance mixed with Art Deco style of skyscrapers that stand out in the Chicago skyline.
If Chicago, my favorite architectural destination, was defined by its identity-giving architects, then it would be the Chicago School, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies, SOM and Jahn.
Originally from Germany, Jahn studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in the 1960s and was heavily influenced by the other German’s imprint on Chicago: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The latter’s modernist vocabulary, wich he developed at the Bauhaus, peaked into the International Style, the mundane steel frame high-rises with the glass curtain walls of the mid-century city centers.
A famous example of that Chicago style are Mies’ Lakeshore Drive Apartments (1951) and the Lake Point Tower (1968) by Mies’ alums John Heinrich and George Schipporeit, pictured below:
Helmut Jahn evolved from these principles set by Mies during the mid-century into a postmodern architect as from the 1980s. He has defined city centers like Berlin (Sony Center, 1998) and Chicago (Thompson Center 1985). The Thompson Center, in whose basement lies the Clark/Lake train station of the Blue line from O’Hare Airport, is where I usually take the train from the airport to when sojourning in Chicago on my own. The building with its vast atrium defined by pink and turquoise railings houses government and retail offices, and was much maligned as one of the lesser productions of 1980’s postmodernism. Even before Jahn’s untimely demise, it was offered for sale and currently faces demolition. Nonetheless, it is one of the most unique indoor public spaces of the city – a hybrid space.
The flashy 1980’s image of the Thompson Center much defined the man himself. Maybe the only architect ever gracing the cover of a men’s fashion magazine (GQ May 1985), Jahn was very image-conscious and dressed in bespoke suits and fedoras, while being known around Chicago for driving to work in his Porsche and cultivating the aura of a celebrity. He kept his fitness regime until his fateful accident. Ibsen’s Master Builder tells the story of an older architect succumbing to his hubris. This is not the case with Jahn, who earned the magazine cover under the title “The Master Builder”.
In my book, Jahn’s mastery peaked in Suvarnabhumi Airport.
The Master Airport
Constructed in 2006 by Helmut Jahn and engineer Werner Sobek, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport excels through its sense-of-place design and Buddhist ornamentation, but to me is reminiscent of the arcade architecture of the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele. It is the roof structure and steel framework that most impresses the traveler within this airport. The temple-like roof and tubular concourses are unique in aviation design. A similar, tent-like roof can be found at Denver and the Hajj Terminals.
The building consists of long span, lightweight steel support structures, with exposed precast concrete elements and a translucent membrane covering the roof elements. The concourses were designed for future expansion; as of now, a new concourse is being constructed.
The terminal roof is mostly reduced of mechanical loads, creating an aesthetic, airy and light atmosphere within the terminal and concourses. Landscaped courtyards on the outside and inside and abundant motifs of Thai Buddhist architecture emphasize the cultural traditions of Thailand. Much like the Crystal Palace, the inside is a curious smorgasbord of retail and Thai temples and sculptures.
In my opinion, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport (Suvarnabhumi meaning golden land in Sanskrit), is the airport with the most sense-of-place design philosophy.
Yet, I am aware that it is a kind of Potemkin Village on our way to our plane. A feeling I am beset with in many airports. Nowhere is the clash between culture, identity and conspicuous consumption as big as in this airport. This celebrated monument of the Hindu fable being flanked by Chanel and Gucci stores remind me of the alienation I felt at the Pyramids of Gizeh and the Pizza Hut close to them.
ps: the plaque for the above sculpture “Scene of the Churning of the Milk Ocean” reads:
“This scene depicts the Vishnu Kurmavatara and the churning of the Milk Ocean. The naga (the king of serpents), Vasaki, is curled around the mountain Mandara. Vishnu, incarnated in the form of a great turtle, supports the mountains on his back. Devas (demigod) and Asuras (demons) pull on the naga’s body to churn the water of the ocean for thousands of years in order to produce the nectar of immortality, Amrita. From the churning, numerous opulent items are produced, including Dhanvantari carrying the pot of Amrita. In the end, the cooperation between Devas and Asuras is shattered. The Devas fulfill their plan of acquiring all Amrita, disperse the Asuras out of Heaven to the Underworld.”
Images:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_R._Thompson_Center_Chicago_(18083187819).jpg
Mobilus In Mobili, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/may/11/helmut-jahn-obituary
https://www.archdaily.com/903456/i-prefer-when-form-follows-force-an-interview-with-helmut-jahn
Helmut Jahn, Werner Sobek, Matthias Schuler, Suvarnabhumi airport: Bangkok, Thailand, 2007
Categories: Airports
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