The Legacy of Helmut Jahn's Thompson Center

Less than one week after Gov. JB Pritzker announced the James R. Thompson Center was for sale, its architect was tragically killed in a biking accident. Helmut Jahn’s most famous building in Chicago has also been a source of controversy. It’s been derided for its retro colors, its inefficient heating and cooling system, and its spaceship-like facade among neo-classical architecture. But Jahn’s designs were integral in ushering a new era of design known as post-modernism. We discuss Jahn’s legacy and style with one architecture buff who says Chicago had never seen anything like the Thompson Center when it was first built.

Guest: Lee Bey, Photographer, former Chicago Sun-Times architecture critic, author, Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago's South Side (Second to None: Chicago Stories) (@LEEBEY)

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