The James R. Thompson Center (JRTC), originally the State of Illinois Center, is a postmodern-style civic building designed by architect Helmut Jahn, located at 100 W. Randolph Street in the Loop district of Chicago. Designed with a post-modernist rotunda, it was built to house offices of the Illinois state government in the most populated city and county of the state and opened in 1985. In 2022, state government offices were relocated nearby to less costly quarters and Google purchased the building from the state and expects to move in 2026 after two years and $280 million of renovations.
Front façade looking northwest.
Helmut Jahn was a German-American architect, known for projects such as the Sony Center on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, Germany; the Messeturm in Frankfurt, Germany; the Thompson Center in Chicago; One Liberty Place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Suvarnabhumi Airport, in Bangkok, Thailand, among others.
Helmut Jahn
An illuminated, suspended, oval roof covers the 102 m span of the central Forum of the Sony Center, Berlin.
Auraria Library
James R. Thompson Center