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One of Chicago’s iconic pieces of public art will be getting a new home. French artist Jean Dubuffet’s sculpture “Monument with Standing Beast,” in place in front of the Thompson Center since the building opened in 1985, is moving to a different spot in the Loop. — Chicago Sun Times
Following last week’s $105 million sale of the Thompson Center to Google, the famed Dubuffet sculpture will be relocated to a former bank building at 115 S. LaSalle Street, a space purchased by the state of Illinois to house office space lost with the sale. The 29-foot, 10-ton... View full entry
It’s our duty to give them our perspective, but it always ends up being a collaboration between what our ideas and knowledge are, and what their vision is. I would be doing anyone in development a disservice if we didn’t propose and push for something that is greater than what initially is the expectation. Like many things in life, you think you can run a mile this fast, and then someone challenges you to run a little bit faster and you figure out you can. You’re always moving the bar. — The Real Deal
The younger Jahn, now president of the firm his late father established, spoke with TRD about the recently-announced sale of Helmut Jahn's most famous work, commenting that the 37-year-old Thompson Center would be “enhanced to a level and expectation of a 21st-century office” before shutting... View full entry
The sale of the iconic Thompson Center in downtown Chicago is being finalized with Google planning to occupy office space following extensive renovations by the new owner. Google will take over the entire building once the new owners, JRTC Holdings, renovate the Thompson Center to the tech giant's specifications. — CBS Chicago
With its future sorted, the Helmut Jahn-designed building is here to stay. A sale agreement with JRTC Holdings was finalized in March; however, today’s announcement includes revisions to the agreement and the addition of Google as the primary tenant. Originally, Illinois was set to receive... View full entry
Google is negotiating to buy the spaceship-like James R. Thompson Center in Chicago in a deal that could provide a much-needed boost to the city’s Loop business district.
The Mountain View, California-based tech giant is seeking to buy the Helmut Jahn-designed building at 100 W. Randolph St., where it plans to expand its Chicago offices into a large portion of the 17-story building’s soon-to-be-renovated office space, according to people familiar with the deal.
— CoStar
The future for Chicago's James R. Thompson Center, designed by the late Helmut Jahn, may be looking a bit brighter after the National Trust for Historic Preservation added the postmodern gem to its annual “America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places” list in 2019. Last year, the Chicago... View full entry
Chicago Business is reporting that an LLC related to the firm founded by recently deceased architect Helmut Jahn is filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in an unfurling landlord-tenant dispute that began taking shape during the pandemic. Jahn LLC reported gross revenues under $13,000 last year and has... View full entry
A path forward in Illinois’ plans for the redevelopment of the Thompson Center has been made a little clearer in Chicago this week, a month after the accidental death of architect Helmut Jahn in a tragic bicycling accident at the age of 83. A City Council committee approved a proposal from... View full entry
Helmut Jahn, the highly respected German-American architect, was tragically killed on Saturday from a vehicular collision while riding his bicycle in the Chicago suburb of Campton Hills. Born in Germany, near Nuremberg, in 1940, Jahn arrived in Chicago in 1966 to study under Ludwig Mies van... View full entry
In a sign of the rising concern over the future of postmodern architecture in the American preservation community, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has named the 34-year-old Helmut Jahn-designed James R. Thompson Center in Chicago to its annual “America’s 11 Most Endangered... View full entry
Illinois governor, J.B. Pritzker, plans on signing a state bill that would authorize the sale of the James R. Thompson Center, paving the way for its potential redevelopment. The postmodern building designed by Helmut Jahn has housed offices of the Illinois state government since opening in... View full entry
Can Helmut Jahn's Thompson Center be saved? A newly released short documentary, Starship Chicago, delves into the struggle and controversy around preserving the state of Illinois building. Some see the building as a unique representation of transparent government and Chicago's architectural... View full entry
The Willis Tower may soon have to say goodbye to its title as the tallest building in the Windy City. Two competing designs for a redevelopment of the Helmut Jahn-designed James R. Thompson center stretch high above the tower. One, by Jahn himself, would preserve the original, curving structure... View full entry
I confess that I feel the sort of ambivalence toward the James R. Thompson Center as I did toward Prentice Women's Hospital: I do understand why people want to raze it, I don't find it pretty, I understand the functional problems.
But all the same, I believe the Thompson Center should be saved.
[...] Chicago remains full of examples of money and vision coming together to create wonderful buildings.
— chicagobusiness.com
Related Chicago preservation stories:Chicago's iconic Marina City could be headed for landmark statusPrentice Hospital Could Become Modern Architecture’s ‘Penn Station Moment’ View full entry
Seventy years after the end of the war, Berlin is finally filling the last gaps left by Allied bombs, which destroyed more than two-thirds of the buildings in the city center. Architects say the construction boom offers Berlin a chance to make up for decades of bad planning and mediocre architecture. “This is a new time in Berlin,” says Libeskind [...]. “It’s one of the great cities of the world, and we expect it to compete. We don’t expect it to be some backwater.” — bloomberg.com
Previously:OMA wins Axel Springer Berlin HQ competitionBerlin's Alexanderplatz high-rise developments continue to take shapeLondon’s architecture lacks Berlin’s sense of culture, says ChipperfieldBerlin After the Wall: A Microcosm of the World’s Chaotic Change View full entry
The idea is always that a building like this in a particular light merges with the sky. The building is on a very small site, and has a very small footprint. There was a requirement from a planning point of view, which we fully supported and were actually happy about, that we had to provide a plaza on the ground floor. And that’s actually why the building toward the base, it pulls in its belly and it slopes so that the urban space is adequate and a required size. — nytimes.com
