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Photo © Murphy/Jahn
AIA honors the futuristic vision and high energy of Murphy/Jahn
By Cheryl Kent
According to Chicago folklore, Mayor Richard J. Daley (father of the current mayor) called architect Charles F. Murphy in 1967 while McCormick Place was still burning. "Charlie" the mayor said, "start drawing." Murphy's firm—then known as C.F. Murphy and now Murphy/Jahn (M/J)—did get the commission to rebuild the convention center. Gene Summers was hired to design the project, and he brought along his 27-year-old assistant, Helmut Jahn.
Murphy/Jahn was named Firm of the Year by the AIA for 2005. In two years, the office will celebrate its 70th anniversary. Since 1982, it has been under the sole proprietorship and determined leadership of Helmut Jahn.
The firm's roots in Chicago are deep (Charles Murphy worked in Daniel Burnham's office during the last year of his life), and it has contributed significant work to Chicago, providing it with some of the tough, muscular buildings for which the city is justly famous. To name two, there is McCormick Place (1970), with its massive, 19-acre roof and unique support structure; and the 1965 Richard J. Daley Center, with its 87-foot-long bays. The office continued to be the mayor's favorite and win plum jobs from the city, among them O'Hare Airport. In those days, M/J gave Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's Chicago office a run for its money even as it constructed the 100-story John Hancock Tower.
As Murphy/Jahn, the office's reach is global: In addition to the U.S., it designs projects in Europe, Asia, and Africa. The firm's work is as technically audacious as ever—although the emphasis is no longer on steel and breathtaking spans—and the architectural expression has evolved, becoming more refined in the past decade, characterized by sculptural massing and delicate glass skins. Perhaps only Jean Nouvel matches M/J's skillful and effective use of glass.
Since 2000, beginning with the Sony Center, M/J has been collaborating regularly with engineer Werner Sobek and climate designer Mathias Schuler. Jahn and Sobek have coined a new term, Archi-Neering, to express the equality of their collaborative working relationship, and they released a book on the subject. "In the office," Jahn says, "no one can tell me I had a bad idea. But Werner can tell me I had a bad idea."
The collaboration has given recent work a seamless quality. With higher energy-performance standards in Europe, M/J has designed large-scale, innovative buildings using natural ventilation as the primary system. While mechanical backups assist in extreme conditions, the elimination of conventional HVAC supports has simplified design.
Murphy/Jahn followed a logical path to its present work. During the 1970s and 1980s, the firm sought to expand architecture through technology and new materials. Its speculative office buildings of that period suffered the gaudy veneers of thin polished stone and coy historical references that everyone's did. There are the flamboyant projects like the Thompson Center in Chicago that won Jahn the name "Flash Gordon." (Defiantly, Jahn embraced the name, adopting it for his racing sailboat.) But in smaller commissions, such as the Rust-Oleum Headquarters (1978) and the Xerox Center (1980), Murphy/Jahn produced modest gems demonstrating an honest search for a path from doctrinaire Modernism to a meaningful contemporary architecture. These projects show the firm was never in danger of dead-ending on historicism nor floundering in abstract literary philosophy.
Starting his career among Chicago's titans, Jahn learned to think big. In an interview several years ago, he said pointedly, "I've designed one house in my life," and that was a gift for Murphy, who was retiring. Jahn—a man of formidable intelligence and drive—looks pragmatically at every job to push the solution past convention. In America, he celebrates the efficiency and economy with which buildings are constructed, as in the IIT Student Housing, Chicago (2003); in Europe, he revels in the freedom to experiment and the higher standards for energy saving, as in the Post Tower, Bonn, Germany (2003).
Murphy/Jahn has been an architecture boot camp for young architects, where they are worked hard and where some discover their own grit and design talent. The list of distinguished architects who worked at M/J attest to the firm's eye for talent and an ability to cultivate—albeit with very tough love—the gifted. The list of alumni includes Tom Beeby, Jacques Brownson, John Burgee, David Hovey, and Ron Krueck, among others.
The firm has been controversial, and receiving the AIA Firm of the Year Award does not acknowledge a new willingness to compromise on Murphy/Jahn's part. As evidence, one need only look to the Sony Center, Berlin (2000), the
central court of which recalls the Thompson Building in Chicago—the most controversial building Jahn ever designed. Instead of repudiating the work that caused the firm its biggest headache, Murphy/Jahn has instead returned to its theme. This time, the expression is refined while retaining the original's exuberance. Sony does not feel over-the-top, as the Thompson Center does. It is this control—call it maturity—combined with an enduring appetite for experimentation that characterizes the firm's current work.
2005 Honor Awards index | Architecture Awards | Interiors Awards
Urban Design | 25 Year Award | Firm Award | Gold Medal Award
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