JAMES R. THOMPSON CENTER
CHICAGO PRIZE 2021
CHICAGO ARCHITECTURAL CLUB CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE CENTER
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Contents 03
Committee Introduction
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Competition Overview
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Competition Entries
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A NOTE FROM THE COMPETITION COMMITTEE COMPETITION COMMITTEE:
Mejay Gula, Elva Rubio, and Travis Rukamp of Chicago Architectural Club Michael Wood and Ian Spula of Chicago Architecture Center The Thompson Center Ideas Competition is a seminal, timely initiative. With the building now open to possible demolition, Chicagoans are faced with an important moment in our city’s architectural and urban design history: can our approach to renewal be one that doesn’t result in erasure but that builds upon the foundations of the past? The jury deliberations for selecting Winners and Honorable Mentions were some of the most lively, compelling, and intense dialogues we have encountered. Via Zoom, the conversations revealed the exciting future opportunities that these entries illustrate, along with a deep debate about what makes a city, what is architecture, and what gives a building value. In this publication, we have captured highlights from the competition brief as well as the unabridged and unedited submissions from all the design teams who participated in the competition. From the highly conceptual to the pragmatic, the ideas drawn forth from this competition honor preservation, challenge traditional building programs, and imagine bright futures. Let’s keep the conversations going about how Chicago can update and further enhance this great civic building.
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James R. Thompson Center CHICAGO PRIZE 2021
For the 2021 Chicago Prize, the Chicago Architecture Center and the Chicago Architectural Club called for new visions for the State of Illinois Center/James R. Thompson Center. Designed by Helmut Jahn, the State of Illinois Center, also known as James R. Thompson Center, is facing the threat of complete demolition. Located in the Chicago “Loop” it is a major transportation node, commercial center, and workspace. The building has been criticized for being ugly, oversized, inefficient, and poorly maintained. However, the Thompson Center has been pivotal to urban transit and a highly democratic contemporary civic center. At the time of its construction in 1985, Helmut Jahn’s State of Illinois Center was a stark contrast to Chicago’s historic and modernist architecture, yet today it is an architectural icon in its own right. For the fourth year in a row, the Thompson Center has been listed in the Landmarks Illinois’ annual Most Endangered Historic Places in Illinois and it was included in Preservation Chicago’s Chicago 7 Most Endangered list in 2018, 2019, and 2020. The Chicago Architectural Club and the Chicago Architecture Center ask the 2021 Chicago Prize participants to envision a new life for the building through restorative architecture.
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INTRODUCTION Built in 1985, the State of Illinois Center/James R. Thompson Center resulted from the collaboration of Murphy/Jahn and Lester B. Knight & Associates and was commissioned by the State of Illinois and Governor James R. Thompson (1936 – 2020). The building is located in the Chicago “Loop” on a site delimited by Lake Street to the north, Randolph Street to the south, Clark Street to the east, and LaSalle Street to the west. The Thompson Center’s design aims to express its civic function as a government building. Its height and scale relate to the neighboring Chicago City Hall/Cook County Building, it is connected to several subway and elevated CTA lines, and the original scheme included energy considerations. The north and west elevations follow the street, while a curved stepped glass curtainwall facade breaks the rigidity of the city’s grid on the south-east corner, opening up an outdoor plaza and defining the main entrance to the building’s central space, the atrium. Public art is displayed in the plaza and free standing columns articulate the transition from the exterior to the interior through a covered colonnade. The building’s facades are almost completely made of glass and feature a combination of transparent and reflective panels.
Layers of office floor trays encircle the atrium, and the mechanics of getting up and down are celebrated. Seemingly freestanding elevator banks and articulated suspended stairways lend an air of kinetic sculpture, an impression compounded almost to limitless degrees by the kaleidoscopic reflective spandrel rings. These segmented bands turn the reflections of moving people into everchanging Duchamp paintings. The views, whether from top, middle, or ground floor are spectacular and endlessly changing.” (Murphy J., 1985) With this building Helmut Jahn proposes a new type of civic space open to the public. The floor plan’s “open office” concept and the use of glass symbolically express the idea of an accessible and transparent government. Despite its high tech aesthetics, the human is at the center of the Thompson Center’s design. “It is intended that it provide a humane, stimulating environment, thus reestablishing the “social role of architecture.” (Murphy J., 1985)
Inside the building the atrium is revealed: a breathtaking 17-story high public space covered by a slanted skylight 160 feet across. The circular atrium space is a contemporary interpretation of the rotunda, a classic architectural shape historically used for civic and public buildings. “Ringed at the lower levels by shops and restaurants, and on the upper tiers by state offices, this space is what the building is really about. [...] Here, a very elegant and spidery structure enfolds the void and becomes the matrix on which everything is hung.
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LEGACY OF HELMUT JAHN
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PHOTO: INGRID VON KRUSE
January 4, 1940 - May 8, 2021 Helmut Jahn, FAIA, has earned a reputation on the cutting edge of progressive architecture. His buildings have had a “staggering” influence on architecture according to John Zukowsky, former Associate Curator of Architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago. Jahn’s buildings have received numerous design awards and have been represented in architectural exhibitions around the world. Born in Germany, Jahn graduated from the Technische Hochschule in Munich. He came to the United States for graduate studies in architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology. After attending IIT, he worked at C. F. Murphy Associates as a Project Architect under Gene Summers, designing the new McCormick Place. In 1976, his first major high-rise building in Chicago, Xerox Centre, received great critical acclaim. Jahn has been called Chicago’s premier architect who has dramatically changed the face of Chicago. His national and international reputation has led to commissions across the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia. His projects have been recognized globally for design innovation, vitality, and integrity. Featured in numerous publications, his work has generated much excitement amongst the press and general public alike. Jahn’s work has been included in exhibits worldwide since 1980. He has taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was the Elliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Design at Harvard University, the Davenport Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at Yale University, and Thesis Professor at IIT.
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COMPETITION BRIEF
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The architecture of Chicago is defined by its many layers of innovative architecture that have occurred throughout its history--the preservation, rethinking, repurposing, and renewal of its most important buildings is critical to carry on the city’s long-standing reputation as a center of architectural innovation. The Thompson Center’s design was progressive for its time. Dwelling in the vertical shadows of modern icons like Mies van der Rohe’s Daley Center, Helmut Jahn’s mid-rise Thompson Center pierced the trends of neighboring International Style and Neoclassical buildings with a revolutionary concept for a civic building, one that represents a promising future of “transparency and accessibility”. Bringing together the various services of government offices in one building, the Thompson Center is also a major transit hub and a place for gathering to enjoy art, shop, and dine. Jahn brings open space indoors with the remarkable glazed 17-story grand atrium. Known as a “people’s center” or a “people’s palace”, the building was a symbol of government accessibility, transparency, and commitment to serving the people. This was a bold departure from how government buildings used to interface with the public. With modern materials adorning the slight colorful twists of the patriotic red, white, and blue, and a building shape referencing the grand domes of the government structures in our state’s capitol, Jahn’s postmodern marvel has been recognized worldwide in both praise and criticism. Often mistaken for a stadium or perhaps a spaceship since its construction, the James R. Thompson Center has generated contrasting feelings: it has been praised for its progressive architecture, and
criticized for being oversized, inefficient, and costly to operate. Deferred maintenance and the lack of longterm reinvestment has taken a toll on the building through worn surfaces and failing systems. Helmut Jahn’s original design specified the use of double pane glazing for the building’s facades, which was later substituted with single pane glazing due to cost considerations. This resulted in overheated offices in the summer and severe condensation/ice buildup in winter. Additional cooling towers were later installed to regulate these drastic conditions, which have proven costly to maintain and operate. It is reported that the building’s energy usage is double that of similar downtown structures. In 2015, former Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner announced his interest in the sale or demolition of the Thompson Center. Located in Chicago’s Central Business District and having exceptional access to transit, the property is expected to command top dollar if sold to a developer. In 2019, Illinois Democratic Governor Jay Robert Pritzker signed a bill to begin its sale. In May of 2021, just days before Jahn’s passing, Governor Pritzker issued the RFP for the Thompson Center. “Governor Pritzker has the opportunity, after years of neglect by his predecessors, to lead through the sale of the Thompson Center by giving it new life. Repurposing the building the right way could go beyond what the building ever was, making it better, more public, and a place where you want to work, stay overnight, live or just visit and feel good. Miracles and dreams can become real.” (Helmut Jahn, 2020)
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The Thompson Center has been pivotal to Chicago as a transit hub, a revolutionary civic center that opened itself to the city, and an architectural milestone that symbolized a bold transition and looked toward a new future of architecture. Can our approach to renewal be one that doesn’t result in erasure but that builds upon the foundations of the past? For the 2021 Chicago Prize, the Chicago Architectural Club and the Chicago Architecture Center are calling for new, creative visions for the State of Illinois Center to give it new life while preserving its architecture and public character.
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JURY
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Founder and Design CAROL
Principal, Ross Barney
MICHELLE T.
President,
PHILIP
Executive Vice President,
ROSS BARNEY
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Architects, FAIA, HASLA
The Poetry Foundation
CASTILLO Chicago Prize 2021
JAHN, FAIA
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Design Principal, PETER D.
HGA Architects & Engineers,
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Founder and Design Director,
MIKYOUNG
Founding Principal,
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President & CEO,
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AIA, NOMA
HEATHERWICK
KIM
Heatherwick Studio
Mikyoung Kim Design
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Landmarks Illinois
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COMPETITION ENTRIES 1.
THE ILLINOIS SPINNAKER
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HUDHUT
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NEW LIFE
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RIPPLE (HM)
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THE THOMPSON-SCRAPER (HM)
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THE ATRIUM AT THOMPSON CENTER
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THE NEW STATE OF ILLINOIS CENTER (HM)
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LESS TRON MORE WATERWORLD (CR)
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UNTITLED
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THOMPSON TERRACES
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INCUBATOR - A CONTAINER OF URBAN LIFE (CR)
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THOMPSON INNOVATION CENTER
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A CELEBRATION OF PUBLIC SPACE
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A NEW PARTNER IN DIALOGUE
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GATEWAY TO THE CITY FOR THE CITY (CR)
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PROPOSAL FOR THE JAMES R THOMPSON CENTER
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UNLOCKING POTENTIAL: THE THOMPSON CENTER DESIGN COMPETITION
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OFFSET: THE VERTICAL LOOP (W)
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CONCEAL / REVEAL
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THOMPSON SQUARE
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THE THOMPSON SPIRE
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THERE’S SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE! (HM)
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PUBLIC POOL (W)
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ASSEMBLING THE ATRIUM :: A PROPOSAL FOR POPULATING THE PEOPLE’S PALACE
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THE PEOPLE OF CHICAGO CENTER
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THE ARK
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THOMPSON CENTER INTERVENTION
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2021 CHICAGO PRIZE: JAMES R. THOMPSON CENTER
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THE ILLINOIS BUILDING
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THERE’S NO HOLLYWOOD IN THE MIDWEST: THE THOMPSON CENTER PLAYS ITSELF (CR)
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ONE CHICAGO SCHOOL (W)
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PRESENT TEMPER
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Jury Selected Winner
(HM) Jury Selected Honorable Mention (CC)
Committee’s Recognition
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THE ILLINOIS SPINNAKER Preserving the Thomson Center requires serving the diverse populations of Chicago, and those committed to living and entertainment in the Loop. The up-zoned site reminds us of differences that must be reconciled. This project re-commits the building to a richer variety of cultural activities, and it places a residential high rise over that. The Thompson Center creates a plaza that can do for Chicago what Times Square does for Manhattan. The building needs a new skin, and this project envisions a huge screen of slim hyper-insulated EFTE panels, each panel activated with 200 LED pixels. Different evenings will deliver the historic original façade, time-arts commissioned by the Illinois Arts Council, X Games, championship matches, and yacht races, and fancy footwork from the Maria Tallchief dance floor at the base of the rotunda, showcasing the stars of Edna Davoll and Jamma Butler’s Soul Skate O Rama. The Clark Street Parabola façade should hold a Kahn Academy of Analytical Geometry and a Rainbow Cone Ice Cream Shop selling Conical Sections. LaSalle Street should hold a DuSable Trading Post selling artisanal creations of BIPOC entrepreneurs, the commercial spirit that put Chicago on the business map 250 years ago. Lake Street should hold a reprise of the Clark and Barlow high end residential hardware showroom. The Spinnaker above holds 36 floors of one and two story apartment, built of super lightweight construction (titanium and carbon fiber) echoing bicycles and boats, never before used at this scale. Autonomous battery driven self-leveling residential elevators ride curving rails from the Thompson Center’s roof up to Planet Mongo Tavern in the funicular wheelhouse, where balanced twin double decker rocket cars (the Bezos and the Branson) can also take you.
Entry as submitted by: Anders Nereim
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HUDHUT Proposal to House Chicago Homeless Our proposal aims to alleviate some of the homelessness that plagues the inner city of Chicago, through our Housing and Urban Development model known as HUDHUT. This model that we project into the James R. Thompson Center, speculates how one can transform the shelter typology into a beautiful urban oasis. Our design first sets up an intricate assortment of grassland parks and neighborhoods that would live in the Thompson center. From these assorted and differentiated neighborhoods, towers spring up. These towers are primitive dwellings that hold only the essentials for overnight inhabitation, nothing more, nothing less. This primitiveness we speculate would shift the social dynamics to the parks, green spaces, and incubation labs found on the ground level. Allowing isolated functions to operate at their peak effectiveness, not sharing duties but rather allowing these functions to create a complex ecosystem. Within this ecological framework lives a new aesthetic that highlights lost or neglected histories. We project images, shapes, and famous Chicagoan iconography that displayed the city’s complicated histories. Images and icons that relate to immigration, African diaspora, and Chicago’s industrial tradition; this visual aesthetic means to edify the user. Allowing for under-told stories to be re-told through architecture reclaiming another primitive function in our assortment of primitive functions.
Entry as submitted by: Robert Clarke, Alexis Clarke
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NEW LIFE Park in the Prairie Once a dreary shopping mall where government happens, the Thompson Center enters a new life stripped of its glass enclosure and along with it, the strange yet familiar facade. Redressed as an indeterminate park, referencing its structural and geometric formalities, the park expresses the spatial opportunities offered by the peculiar form by redefining the interior condition and redistributing space between all constituents. Prescribing the Thompson Center as this park in the prairie in the heart of Chicago delegates space to the people much like the city’s lakefronts and remembers the native flora that exists predominantly on the peripherals of this urbanscape. With an emphasis on public space, the proposal attempts to make the Thompson Center more accessible in both time and space, allowing the public to experience the vast atrium space in new, exciting ways, expanding public space vertically by activating the space with overgrown cables that permit flora to new heights while connecting the atrium back to the ground. The new Thompson Center aims to preserve the integrity of the building while addressing the issues that it currently faces by maintaining the stoic form and expressing the intrinsic beauty with a public-oriented approach. Interweaving social and economic vitality for both the site and the lives that pass through.
Entry as submitted by: Tyler Sauter, In-San Chiang, Laid Omeri
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JURY SELECTED HONORABLE MENTION
RIPPLE Our primary goal was to preserve the existing building. The Thompson Center was envisioned by Helmut Jahn to be a sort of public forum - a space to be filled with the community and its stories. The current entry sequence, security, and wayfinding go against this vision, so we proposed a new entry. We inverted the existing auditorium and converted it into a stepped plaza to create a sort of public auditorium. This would allow the public to access the building at all times, irrespective of what private entity is occupying the building. Furthermore, we propose to expand the plaza and connect to the existing city hall, to increase the public park area. A new public attraction comprised of vertical gardens, auditoriums, art galleries, and community spaces would vertically activate the existing atrium, ultimately bringing people to the roof. We hope this will generate additional income for the building. We propose a combination of passive and active sustainable strategies including natural ventilation, replacing the existing glazing with highperformance glass, and utilizing the rooftop greenhouse to further cool the building. An Urban Farm would occupy the top floor. This space is the workhorse of the building. Our hope is for this space to functionally operate and provide healthy urban farmed products to underserved communities. We also envision this space as a learning environment for CPS and other community organizations. Finally, we seek to utilize the existing CTA rail network to reach food deserts and deliver the farmed products.
Entry as submitted by: Patrick Carata, Simon Cygielski, Sarah Bush, Ilyssa Kaserman, Sean King, Amparito Martinez, Marcin Rysniak, Cameron Scott, Mica Manaois, Ed Curley
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JURY SELECTED HONORABLE MENTION
THE THOMPSON-SCRAPER FROM THOMPSON CENTER TO THOMPSON-SCRAPER On the basis of saving and inheriting the Thompson Center, the designer created Thompson-Scraper. A GREEN SCRAPER The designer added a transparent glass curtain wall around the existing building’s atrium, turning the large indoor atrium with huge energy consumption into an outdoor one. This greatly reduces the operating costs of building air conditioning. Keep the skin steel frame structure and replace the existing mirror glass with transparent energy-saving glass. Trees are planted on the indoor platform. The existing vertical elevators in the atrium are transformed into a core tube structure to add a building area above the existing building. A CYBER SCRAPER The designer designed a 3D LED matrix in the outdoor existing atrium, turning it into a huge naked-eye 3D display space. People can get a brand new 3D experience. A conical 3D LED matrix is also designed on the upper part of the additional building. This makes the 3D LED matrix a dynamic city landmark with the similar geometric fan shape of the existing building in form. A PUBLIC SCRAPER Although the designer made the large atrium outdoor, a 37-foot-tall entrance hall with the transparent glass roof is still retained as the public space. City residents and tourists can have activities and experience 3D images here. In the 3D LED matrix on the roof of the existing building and on the top of the additional building, a 20-foot diameter glass tube gallery is designed as a public space such as coffee.
Entry as submitted by: Wenyi Zhu
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THE ATRIUM AT THOMPSON CENTER We believe that the existing building can be kept and enhanced and its demolition is not an option anymore. Our goal for the design is to improve on an already successful platform at both the programmatic and design levels. For this reason, we have treated the existing building as the foundation for our tower. In order to achieve our goal we established the following design principles: a. Keep all of the existing uses, since they are appropriate for the site. b. Enhance the program by adding a mixture of hotel and residential units at the upper levels and the addition at the crown of a public space for the citizens to enjoy their City views (Restaurant/ Club / Roof deck viewing platform). c. The addition of green spaces throughout the building: green roofs, landscaped terraces, and green rings at different levels. d. The addition of a tower because this is after all the City of Chicago and we wanted to create a strong presence for this site. The tower will house a hotel and residential condominiums while keeping the atrium open towards the SE orientation, creating an Urban Window for the occupants to enjoy a view of the surrounding areas and establishing a visual link to the City. e. Enhance the street presence of the building by creating a majestic entrance and by adding mass to the existing promenade columns along the street corners. The Atrium at Thompson Center is proof that Second chances do happen: Don’t Demo, IMPROVE!!
Entry as submitted by: Jose A. Magaña, Benjamin Paul Garcia
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JURY SELECTED HONORABLE MENTION
THE NEW STATE OF ILLINOIS CENTER The State of Illinois Center, also known as James R. Thompson Center, needs a new facade in order to preserve the initial architectural character and the purpose of the building. Major architectural characters: curved stepped glass curtain-wall facade breaks the rigidity of the city’s grid (transparent and reflective material), 17-story high atrium. Purposes of the building: maintain civic democracy, express the idea of an accessible and transparent government, connects different transit systems. The existing facade has performance deficits and low interactive ability. The glass curtain wall is the biggest exterior feature of the building, visitors from outside can recognize the architecture directly because of the curved screen. Despite the low-performance single panel curtain wall provides abundant sunlight, it creates energy problem, and it cost a lot to maintain a stable temperature in the building in different seasons. Therefore, our design goal is to improve the function of the curtain wall, while enhancing its visual experience with innovative inventions. Manually controllable glass material and digital projection discover new user experiences, strengthen the connection to the city. Apply electrochromic (smart glass) to facade: We use electronically tintable glass for the curtain walls. The electrochromic glass can be directly controlled by building occupants, which is popular for its ability to improve occupant comfort, maximize access to daylight, and reduce energy costs. Video projection on the glass as a city stage: Use glass video projection to express governmental information, display Chicago art media, and increase recreational possibility.
Entry as submitted by: Yuqi Shao, Sheung Tak Andrew Li
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JURY SELECTED WINNER
OFFSET: THE VERTICAL LOOP The Thompson Center is an icon of Chicago’s architectural heritage and a unique and vital contributor to the city’s urban fabric. We see the abstraction inherent in the building’s creation, in both form and image, as an important example of postmodern architecture, and one deserving of careful preservation to positively recalibrate its future use and role in redefining civic space in the Loop. We propose an intervention where a new thermal envelope is offset inboard in both plan and section from the existing curtain wall. This frees the existing façade from its responsibility (and need for repair) as a weather barrier. The removal of the existing vision glass panels and preservation of the original opaque curtain wall elements transforms an inefficient curtain wall system into a screen that acts as a shading device, while preserving the graphic qualities of the iconic façade. Users and the public are free to move about this newfound interstitial space throughout the building. Offsetting the public use of the building in section allows the ground plane to become a public park, open on all sides. Since the existing floor area of the Thompson Center represents about a quarter of the area of the Loop, this park becomes a gateway to what is a new vertical extension of the Loop, comprised of a mix of dynamic programs that gradate from public to private as one moves up the building. Zoned by floor, it affords the opportunity for small scale development in the heart of the Loop.
Entry as submitted by: Eastman Lee Architects: Tom Lee, Christopher Eastman
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CONCEAL / REVEAL Does appearance alone define the value of a work of architecture? Is ugliness justification enough to demolish a public space? The Thompson Center has been criticized since its construction for being ugly, inefficient, and unconditioned. At the same time it houses one of the largest interior public spaces in Chicago, connects a dizzying array of transit, public services, and retail establishments, and has become, if not loved, accepted as a touchstone architectural design in a city filled with celebrated buildings. The problem of the Thompson Center is a problem of surface and skin. If we divorce the envelope of the building from its program, then the radical public program of the interior is free to develop without being burdened by the symbolic overtones of its formal appearance. Our proposal calls for encasing the Thompson Center in a cube of mirrored glass. During the day the building blends, chameleon-like, into its surroundings. At night the internal lights expose the original form and façade of the building, preserving the Center as a ghostly apparition. At the corner where the original building curves we insert an interior garden in the reveal between the old and new facades, blurring the distinction of interior and exterior. The top of the cube becomes a park-like socle for a new tower slab to hold the office program. With the offices relocated in efficient space, the base of the building is reprogrammed with the public support spaces – conference centers, shops, auditorium, lounges, gyms – mediating between public and private.
Entry as submitted by: Peter Randolph, Karen Chow, Emily Koss
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