Helmut Jahn
Helmut Jahn was born in Nuremburg, Germany in 1940. He completed his Diploma in Engineering and Architecture at the Technische Hochschule, Munich, in 1965 and then came to the United States to study at Chicago’s Illinois Institute of Technology.
In 1967 he joined the architecture practice C.F. Murphy Associates. From 1979 to 2012 the firm was known as Murphy/Jahn, renamed JAHN in 2012. Throughout his career Jahn has primarily worked on large-scale residential, office/commercial and civic buildings. Some of his more celebrated works include the Sony Center on the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, the MesseTurm in Frankfurt and One Liberty Place in Philadelphia. Most recently Mr. Jahn is finishing work on 50 West Street, an 800’ tall curved glass residential tower in Lower Manhattan.
Mr. Jahn and his firm have earned numerous awards. In 1987 Mr. Jahn was elected Fellow, American Institute of Architects (AIA). In 1991 he was cited by the AIA as one of the “Ten Most Influential Living American Architects.” In 2005 Murphy/Jahn won the national AIA ‘Firm of the Year’ award. In 2012 Mr. Jahn was awarded prestigious lifetime achievement awards from both the AIA Chicago and from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.
