Helmut Jahn buildings 1975-2015

A visually fascinating catalog of works by a brilliant architect and an equally brilliant photographer.Helmut Jahn: Buildings 1975-2015 The futurological oeuvre of the star architect Photographs Rainer Viertlböck With his eye-catching structures made of glass and steel, US-German star architect Helmut Jahn (b. 1940 in Nuremburg) has since the 1970s been making his mark on the world’s greatest cities. From Chicago and Las Vegas to Singapore and Shanghai, from Munich, Frankfurt and Berlin to Tokyo Helmut Jahn has erected the most spectacular landmarks of futurologist architecture. Whether it’s the “City Spire” skyscraper in New York, Frankfurt’s famous Messeturm tower, the “Sony Center” in Berlin or “Suvarnabhumi Airport” in Bangkok – his architectural legacy has essentially shaped the cityscapes of these metropolises. Schirmer/Mosel is now publishing a catalog featuring Helmut Jahn’s architectural oeuvre as photographed by Rainer Viertlböck (b. 1958 in Munich). That a photographer has documented almost the entire output of a single architect illustrates the extraordinary connection between the pair. What began with a photographic portrait of Jahn’s “Highlight Towers” in Munich has now culminated in the large picture book Helmut Jahn Buildings 1975-2015 Photographs Rainer Viertlböck, a joint project by two artists who are united by their passionate and successful devotion to their respective professions. Like no other photographer, multi-award-winning Rainer Viertlböck knows how to translate the idea behind Helmut Jahn’s buildings into highly atmospheric, wellbalanced pictures. Oscillating between black-and-white and color photographs, he illustrates these trailblazing architectures in dialog with their surroundings, however, not without occasionally juxtaposing panorama shots with daring close-ups, tracing Jahn’s innovative façade design all the way to abstraction. His Postmodern structures with a penchant for high-rises and skyscrapers have placed Helmut Jahn in the company of pioneering figures in contemporary architecture. Thanks to Viertlböck’s impressive photographs, our volume dishes up a concise visual portrait of Jahn’s spectacular output that has not been witnessed in such complexity before. His monumental buildings and signature glass-and-steel architecture, whose recurring key elements include the use of undulating lines, natural lighting and ventilation, a bold use of colors and vast expanses, are the paragons of international building culture.