Helmut Jahn - biography

German-American architect, whose most famous designs are Sony Center on the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, the Messeturm in Frankfurt and the One Liberty Place (formerly the tallest building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) and Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, in Thailand. From 1960 to 1965 he was a student of a Technical University of Munich. In 1966 he emigrated to Chicago, where he was attending Illinois Institute of Technology, but left school without degree. While his studies in Chicago he met there Mies van der Rohe, and this acquaintance strongly influenced his designing style. In 1967 he started work at C.F. Murphy Associates, which was renamed to Murphy/Jahn in 1981, due to his promotion to a position of Executive Vice President and Director of Planning and Design of the firm. After Murphys death in 1985 he took over as a CEO and runs the company until present.