Biography
After completing school with a high school diploma, Jahn studied architecture in Munich and Chicago from 1960 to 1967. In 1965 he completed his degree course with his diploma thesis at the Technical University of Munich. In 1966 he left Germany and moved to the USA to study architecture for another year at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. There Jahn met the last Bauhaus director, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who died in 1969. In 1967, Jahn got a job in his renowned office C. F. Murphy & Associates in Chicago. There, Jahn showed extraordinary planning skills, which is why he was appointed assistant to Gene Summers shortly after joining the company. The German planner quickly became one of the most sought-after architects in the United States. Jahn became vice president and director of planning and design at C. F. Murphy & Associates in 1973. Since then, his work has been based on classic modernism and impresses with its functionality.
Since 1975, Jahn has created almost exclusively designs for spectacular monumental buildings that made him popular around the world. After his investment in C. F. Murphy & Associates, the company was renamed Murphy/Jahn in 1981. At the end of the 1970s he was commissioned to design the "Staten of Illinois Center" in Chicago. Jahn's model was a steel and glass building with a usable area of over 100,000 square meters. A glass cylinder protruding from the roof forms the inner hall, into which numerous galleries open and which lead to office units and shops. From 1981, Jahn taught at various American universities, including the renowned Yale and Harvard universities. In 1982, Jahn became a full professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology. In 1984, the gigantic project was completed according to these plans. In Germany, Jahn caused a stir in 1988 with his design for the trade fair tower in Frankfurt am Main. After its completion in 1991, the tower was nicknamed "Pencil" and, with a height of 257 meters, was one of the largest buildings in Europe.
Since 1992 Jahn has realized several projects in Berlin. These include, among others, the buildings "Kurfürstendamm 70" from 1994, "Kurfürstendamm 119" from 1994 and an office building in the Halensee district from 1996. The renowned architect also worked on the design and development of Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, which was the largest construction site in Europe for several years. Jahn received the contract to build the Sony Center after an international tender. This residential, office and business complex, completed in 2000, is now one of the most sophisticated buildings in Berlin. In addition, the house on Kranzler-Eck in Berlin, which was built between 1998 and 2000, bears Jahn's design signature. The German architect with international reputation has been designing in the United States for over 35 years. His work is influenced by the American architectural style. His constructions are often realized as distinctive glass-steel architecture and have achieved a groundbreaking significance in contemporary architecture. This also includes Jahn's planning of airports in the USA, Saudi Arabia and the Federal Republic of Germany.
His architectural field of work is broad; These include, among other things, train stations, libraries, office and judicial buildings, hotels, schools, sports stadiums and commercial buildings. This was followed by the fourth administration building of Bayer Leverkusen in Leverkusen. The foundation stone for the four-story building was laid on May 25, 2000. After its completion in 2002, the building formed a harmonious unit as an open semi-oval with Carl Duisberg Park. The administration building serves as a representative building with all-round glazing for around 275 employees of the board of directors and the group administration. Jahn became a US citizen when he married an American woman. They secretly became parents of two sons. After the airport station in Cologne/Bonn (2004) and the Hegau Tower in Singen from 2007, the Weser Tower in Bremen was built according to his plans from 2007 to 2010. Jahn realized another spectacular project in 2017 with the construction of the Thyssenkrupp test tower in Rottweil, a 246 meter high elevator test tower for high-speed elevators.
