New renderings Jahn's Skyscraper as Alternative to the future of Its Thompson Center

Landmarks Illinois has presented new images of the proposed extension to the James R, Thompson Center in Chicago. The images attempt to show the versatility of the building to be privately redeveloped as a mixed-use center, with a striking "super tower" in the southwest corner of the site, as proposed by the original architect of the scheme, Helmut Jahn.

Helmut Jahn's Alternative Proposal. Image courtesy of visualizedconcepts

The new images follow on from a debate opened a few months ago about the James R. Thompson Center building by Helmut Janh (also known as the Illinois State Building) a proposal was presented at the end of January that retained much of the post-modern Thompson Center, but also gave a growth alternative, adding a new tower, which would offset the maintenance costs of the aging 16-story structure.

The Thompson Center is locally significant as Chicago’s best example of grand-scaled, Postmodern architecture.

At the time of LI’s 2017 listing, the Illinois General Assembly was planning legislation for an accelerated sale of the building. While Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed the bill based on disagreement with the sale terms, it remains a goal of his administration to sell the building.

Summary of design and programming changes to Thompson Center

A reimagining of public space will need to take place at the street level in order to reconnect the original building and new tower with the inhabitants of the city and usher them in to explore the atrium’s energetic atmosphere. Our renderings include the following changes to the existing structure:

Two-story entrance bays at the plaza would be removed to create open connections between the outside and the voluminous atrium to become a truly public space.
The ground floor and upper office floors would be enclosed to separate private office and retail spaces from the public, open-air atrium.
The lower-level food hall could be enclosed or fitted with retractable glass partitions.
Retail space would be expanded and café dining areas and seasonal food markets could be accommodated in the plaza and open atrium.
Additional seating, landscaping and public art would be encouraged in the open atrium.
The current elevator tower to upper office floors would be enclosed and secured with a new office lobby, while the hotel and residential lobbies would be located within the new tower.
The southwest corner is the best location for a new tower with minimal impact to the building’s significant atrium space.
A new tower, with a footprint of approximately 13,000 square feet, is developed on the southwest corner with hotel uses on the lower floors and residential on the upper floors.
Thompson Center’s second level would connect to the tower’s second floor hotel lobby. Hotel meeting facilities would be incorporated into levels 3 and 4 of the Thompson Center.
The remainder of the existing Thompson Center floors would be utilized as office and tech space.

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More information

Helmut Jahn

Helmut Jahn. Born on January 4, 1940 in Nuremberg (Germany) and died on May 8, 2021, in Campton Hills, as a result of an accident. He was a German architect living in the United States. His childhood was spent in Núrember between the Second World War and its reconstruction. He decided to study architecture at the Technical University of Munich from where he received his degree in 1965. He then worked in an architecture office in that same city. He then emigrated to the United States where he studied for a year at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. It was at that school that he came into contact with the structural engineer Fazlur Khan who would be an influence regarding the way of working with the structure and the design of the skyscrapers that have made him known.

In 1967 Jahn joined the architectural firm C. F. Murphy Associates under Charles Murphy, where six years later he became a partner and project manager. In 1979 the studio changed its name to become Murphy / Jahn. During the 1980s the studio designed some of Chicago's best-known buildings, inspired by the works of Mies van der Rohe. Jahn was a visiting professor of architecture at the universities of Illinois, Harvard, and Yale. Between 1989 and 1993 he was a tenured professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Jahn has received numerous awards and honors. In 1991 the American Institute of Architecture named him one of the ten most influential contemporary architects. In 1994 Germany awarded him in the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2012 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the AIA in Chicago.

He passed away on May 8, 2021 at the age of eighty-one due to a traffic accident while riding a bicycle.

Published on: May 6, 2018

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