In the early 80’s, Jahn designed the Vacation House in Eagle River, Wisconsin. The house overlooks a little lake, the entry is located on the top floor of the house.  The house is a big cube designed to juxtapose with the natural surroundings. The cube is gridded inside and out at three-foot intervals. The color scheme represents the seasons: green represents spring and summer and the red is for autumn, and white represents winter.   

The house is a big cube designed to juxtapose with the natural surroundings. The cube is gridded inside and out at three-foot intervals. The color scheme represents the seasons: green represents spring and summer and the red is for autumn, and white represents winter.  There are irregular window patterns allows views of the lake and frames natural features. The stories in the vacation house are connected by a staircase that looks like a cage. The staircase appears to be at the center of the cube but is actually skewed from the center.

In the late 1970’s Jahn designed the St. Mary’s Athletic Facility in Notre Dame, Indiana. The gymnasium is bright,  sunny, and very open. Large glass installments  and natural light seem to be an enduring characteristic of Jahn’s architecture.
The building is sunk half a level into the ground. This is energy efficient and insulates the building from heat loss in winter. The outside wall is made of insulated white fiberglass. This paired with the use of natural lighting makes the athletic facility more sustainable. The structure is exposed steel, not unlike his first arena. They are painted bright primary colors. The building is double the height that a regular story and the layout is a lot like the Huff on Campus. This is the third building I’ve researched and I am really getting a feel for the horizontality of Jahn’s architecture.

Auraria Library in downtown Denver Colorado was designed by Helmut Jahn in the mid to late 70’s. Auraria library is run by the University of Colorado Denver but is utilized by the  Metropolitan State University of Denver as well as the Community College of Denver. Jahn received an Excellence-In-Design Award from the Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1978. Then another award for the building’s ability to withstand the test of time in 2009 from the Denver chapter of the American Institute of Architects. The downtown campus features two-foot mechanical sunshades, set at 40 degree angles that utilize natural light in a sustainable way. They shield the western and southern sides of the building, shielding the building from harsh sunlight in the summer and lets light in to heat the building in the winter. Natural light provides about 40% of the light the building needs during the day. This was a very forward-thinking design and use of light is a standard for sustainable building practices. 

In Chicago, Helmut Jahn designed the State of Illinois Center in the mid-1980s. The structure was later renamed the James R. Thompson Center .  The design is mostly glass and originally called for insulated double-paned curved glass but it was very expensive. Some suggested the glass be replaced with double paned straight glass but Jahn dismissed this suggestion so the 17 stories curved glass was built with single pane curved glass instead. This change had a pretty adverse effect on the resulting structure. The building is very poorly insulated so it’s not very energy efficient. A more expensive air conditioning system was necessary. It is very cold in the winter and extremely hot in the summer. This practical problem does not detract from the architectural significance of the building. It was built with the original state capital building in mind. The State of Illinois Center is a postmodern interpretation of the capital building’s dome.  The original capital building had a large outdoor public space, Jahn inverted this design and put a huge atrium inside to serving as a public space. The design  for the publicly funded building hoped to indicate an open and transparent government.

Helmut Jahn’s first major building project was Kemper Arena in the 1970s. After the war communities became more prosperous so budgets for municipal entertainment grew and cities wanted to display their wealth in a productive way. In Kansas City Missouri they built a large stadium called Kemper Arena. 
The Arena was built in a very short time. The design was made in about two months. The design is unique at this time. He was trying to create a large column free indoor space. He did this by putting the structural elements on the outside of the building. This was revolutionary and revitalized the area. The new arena stood without incidence for about five years until a very stormy night in the late 70s. The large flat roof became flooded because it had been designed with the limits of local infrastructure. The area is low and has drainage issues so the Kemper Arena was designed to drain at the center of the structure. This paired with very high winds caused about an acre of the roof caved in because the bolts were not as strong as computer simulations had predicted. This was not the first arena collapse at this time and encouraged architects to thoroughly troubleshoot public spaces. In the late 1990s, Kemper Arena was renovated. It was originally windowless, the 1996 renovation added a large glass wall and fixed some of the traffic problems associated with the original design. The renovation only added about 2000 seats. This renovation was very costly and many consider it a mistake. Some think the renovation undermined some of the architectural integrity. Also, the Sprint center was built about 10 years later. 

Helmut Jahn was born in Germany in 1940 right after World War 2 had ended. Much of Germany had been destroyed by bombings and Germany was in a very tough spot economically. As Helmut Jahn grew Germany slowly became more prosperous and began reconstruction. Helmut Jahn witnessed Germany being rebuilt almost from the ground up. Later in his life, he would get to help rebuild Germany himself after the fall of the Berlin Wall. From the ages 20-25 Jahn studied at the Technical University of Munich, graduating with a degree in architecture. This degree was equal to a Masters degree in the United States and immediately started working for an influential architecture firm in Munich after receiving a fellowship. A year later Jahn left Munich to study in Chicago at The Illinois Institute of Technology but left school before earning his degree. Helmut Jahn was no doubt influenced by the famous architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe who left Germany two years before Jahn was born and became head of the architecture school at the Illinois Institute of Technology and helped design the Campus. Jahn left the university to work at an architecture firm called C.F. Murphy Associates. This firm was later renamed Murphy/Jahn in the eighties and became known simply as JAHN in 2012. The firm is very successful and is consistently recognized as one of the top 20 Architecture Firms in the United States and is probably the most influential firm in Chicago. 

The Jazz Hall of Fame in Tulsa Oklahoma sits directly next to the  railroad tracks that divide Blue Dome District and Brady District. This building was converted from an old central railway station in 2004. The original depot was designed by R.C. Stephens and was built as a Public Works Administration (PWA) project during the Great Depression. PWA architecture can be seen here and in many other notable Art Deco buildings in Tulsa.The Jazz Depot is very beautiful but not nearly as ornate as the Art Deco buildings built by oil barrons to show their wealth. This is typicaal of PWA buildings. The Deco sunbursts, winged wheels, and chevrons are still present. This building is inviting and clearly a public space. I discovered this building when I was only 15 exploring downtown Tulsa. The Jazz Hall of Fame is right next to “The Center of the Universe” which is a bit of a Tulsa landmark. 

Sarkey’s Energy Center is a landmark on Campus. It is not only the largest building on campus but the tallest in Norman city limits. The first three levels seem to be an academic complex and the tower of Sarkey’s contains office space. Sarkey’s size is not the most striking feature to me rather the rooftop courtyard. I’ve had classes in Sarkey’s all semester but I only discovered the courtyard last week. I really enjoy the way Sarkey’s architecture makes use of multiple levels. The basement level lower courtyard and the bridge over the courtyard makes me feel as though I am entering a secret garden. The rooftop courtyard is very tranquil, the fountain resembles a natural water source and the footpaths are in very organic shapes. The focus on landscaping juxtaposes nicely with the neat lines and red brick of the building itself. The interior can be very hard to navigate because the first two floors are very open and more connected in room grouping vertically that horizontally. This building is a great expression of nature and the science involved in understanding nature.

This is actually a residence in Tulsa. I remember passing it and being struck by how clean and open the building seemed despite the small windows. The windows are decorated with geometric shapes that were very subtle but still caught the eye somehow. This building was designed by Bruce Goff almost immediately out of high school for his art teacher Adah Robinson. I think this house expresses deep respect and admiration.

The skyline of Tulsa is marked by the copper roof of the Mid-Continent building. The building was originally only sixteen stories when built in 1918 but an additional twenty stories in 1984. It’s modern gothic style stands out in the Art Deco District of Tulsa. Both styles use marble and gold for awe inspiring effects but the gothic style of the Mid-Continent building is less influenced by Egyptian style despite its ziggurat reminiscent roof . There is a lot of marble in the building but there is also a lot of cut stone and stained glass that look like a tiffany lamp  . To sustain continuity of the original Tudor-Gothic design, more than 85,000 pieces of terra cotta panels, spires, cornices and moldings were produced for the exterior façade when the building was expanded in the 1980’s.