Books

Yamasaki Lecture

On October 10, 2018 at 7 PM there will be an event at the downtown Ann Arbor District Library. The event is free and no sign up is required to attend.

Dale Gyure, author of Minoru Yamasaki: Humanist Architecture for a Modernist World will present a power-point illustrated lecture on Yamasaki.  Best known as the architect for the infamous Twin Towers, Yamasaki was based in Detroit for much of his career. His local work includes four unique buildings on Wayne University’s campus, the Michigan Consolidated Gas building in downtown Detroit, and the Chelsea, Michigan high school. Gyure teaches architectural history and theory at Lawrence Tech and is the author of many books on architectural subjects.
Born to Japanese immigrant parents in Seattle, Minoru Yamasaki (1912–1986) became one of the towering figures of midcentury architecture, even appearing on the cover of Time magazine in 1963. His self-proclaimed humanist designs merged the modern materials and functional considerations of postwar American architecture with traditional elements such as arches and colonnades. Yamasaki’s celebrated and iconic projects of the 1950s and ’60s, including the Lambert–St. Louis Airport and the U.S. Science Pavilion in Seattle, garnered popular acclaim.
 
Despite this initial success, Yamasaki’s reputation began to decline in the 1970s with the mixed critical reception of the World Trade Center in New York, one of the most publicized projects in the world at the time, and the spectacular failure of St. Louis’s Pruitt-Igoe Apartments, which came to symbolize the flaws of midcentury urban renewal policy. And as architecture moved in a more critical direction influenced by postmodern theory, Yamasaki seemed increasingly old-fashioned. In the first book to examine Yamasaki’s life and career, Dale Allen Gyure draws on a wealth of previously unpublished archival material, and nearly 200 images, to contextualize his work against the framework of midcentury modernism and explore his initial successes, his personal struggles—including with racism—and the tension his work ultimately found in the divide between popular and critical taste.

Dale Allen Gyure, Ph.D., is Professor and Associate Chair of Architecture at Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan, where he teaches classes in architectural history and theory. Dr. Gyure’s research focuses on American architecture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly the intersections of architecture, education, and society. His published works include the books Frank Lloyd Wright’s Florida Southern College (2010), The Chicago Schoolhouse, 1856-2006: High School Architecture and Educational Reform (2011), Minoru Yamasaki: Humanist Architecture for a Modernist World (2017), and The Schoolroom: A Social History of Teaching and Learning (2018), as well as numerous book chapters and articles. Professor Gyure has served on the Boards of Directors of the Society of Architectural Historians and the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, and is a current member of the Michigan Historic Preservation Review Board.

 

Albert Kahn in Detroit – Presentation and Booksigning by Michael Hodges

This event will be held at the Traverwood Branch Library event space on Thursday, June 21, 2018 from 7:00 to 8:30 PM.

Building the Modern World: Albert Kahn in Detroit, by Michael H. Hodges (Wayne State University Press), tells the tale of the penniless German-Jewish immigrant who never went beyond elementary school, yet at his death was one of the world’s most-famous architects. In this lecture and slide show, Hodges will discuss Kahn’s seminal contributions to modern architecture, his staunch defense of the Detroit Institute of Arts’ Diego Rivera murals when they came under attack, and his role in laying down the industrial backbone for the Soviet Union as chief consulting architect for the first Five Year Plan.

AUTHOR BIO

Michael H. Hodges is the fine-arts writer at The Detroit News, where he’s worked since the early 1990s. Building the Modern World: Albert Kahn in Detroit is his second book. His first, Michigan’s Historic Railroad Stations, was named one of the best books of 2013 by the Library of Michigan. Books will be available for purchase.

“Albert Kahn in Detroit” by Michael Hodges

Book Review by Grace Shackman –
Albert Kahn “almost single handedly invented modern architecture, saved Detroit’s Diego Rivera Murals, and guaranteed Allied Victory in World War II” according to Michael Hodges in his recently published book Albert Kahn in Detroit: Building the Modern World.  Kahn (1869-1942) was responsible for over 2,000 buildings-houses, factories, skyscrapers, commercial buildings, and public buildings including much of the University of Michigan.
Hodges builds good cases for these three claims. Kahn is considered an inventor of modern architecture because his factories, with their big windows and open interior space made possible by using reinforced concrete, were an inspiration for the modernist pioneers in Europe. The second claim is based on the fact that Kahn knew and liked Diego Rivera. While many of the important people in Detroit disliked his murals, Kahn defended them, most notably to Edsel Ford who was paying for them.
The third claim is based on the amount of building Kahn did for WWII including many tank plants, arsenals, airplane engine buildings, giant aircraft factories, and designs for new military bases for the Pacific and Atlantic operations. Added to all this, his firm was responsible for building 500 factories in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Hired ostensibly to build tractor factories, the Kahn people were suspicious that it was really for something else when the Soviets insisted the floors be built stronger than needed.  Indeed the factories were used to make tanks, which the soviets used in World War II, forcing Hitler to divide his troops to fight on two fronts.
All this Hodges explains and much more, writing in a style that feels like he is talking to the reader, not as the omniscient narrator, but as a friend sharing what he knows. And he carefully footnotes, so people can trust what he is saying.  The research was challenging because Kahn left a limited paper trail, mainly letters to his family and occasional newspaper interviews and was not the sort of person to brag or philosophize. But reading everything else he could find about Kahn and talking to people who knew him (Hodges spent 3 1/2 years on the project), rounded out a consistent picture of a man who was a workaholic, more concerned that his buildings did what they were designed for than for fame or recognition.  Time after time, his clients cited their appreciation that they got exactly what they wanted, on time and under budget to boot.
Kahn was well respected in his lifetime and received many honors.  “At the time of his death the architect was world renowned,” says Hodges, but then seemed to vanish, appreciated only in southeast Michigan.  But Hodges ends the book on a happy note. “In a development that would doubtless please the architect, the unexpected urban revival that sprouted in Detroit ….has meant that any number of Kahn’s buildings, which enjoy considerable cachet in the local real estate market, have suddenly seen new life.”
Hodges, who lives on Mulholland (his house was on the Old West Side Homes Tour in 2014), commutes daily to Detroit where he covers fine arts for the Detroit News.  At one time he seriously considered a career in architecture.  However, he says his real joy is taking photographs, which surprisingly he took for the book using only his I phone.  When he found that hiring a helicopter was affordable ($350 an hour, not nothing but he was afraid it would be much higher) he took aerial photographs of some of Kahn’s buildings.  His present day photos are interspersed with historic ones, many loaned to him by the Albert Kahn Associates who have pictures of the buildings when first built.  He’s been giving readings at various locations, so keep watch for ones in the Ann Arbor area.

Alexander Girard, Architect – at the DIA

The book launch for Alexander Girard, Architect will take place on Wednesday, June 13th, at 6 pm at the Detroit Institute of Arts in the Kresge Court.  Remarks from the author and foreword writer Ruth Adler Schnee begin at 6:30 pm. The book will be available for purchase and signing. This event is free, but space is limited. You can sign up at https://alexandergirardlaunch.eventbrite.com

About the book:

During the midcentury period, Michigan attracted visionary architects, designers, and theorists, including Alexander Girard. While much has been written about Girard’s vibrantly colored and patterned textiles for Herman Miller, the story of his Detroit period (1937–53)—encompassing interior and industrial design, exhibition curation, and residential architecture—has not been told. Alexander Girard, Architect: Creating Midcentury Modern Masterpieces by Deborah Lubera Kawsky is the first comprehensive study of Girard’s exceptional architectural projects, specifically those concentrated in the ultra-traditional Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe.

One exciting element of the book is the rediscovery of another Girard masterpiece—the only surviving house designed entirely by Girard, and former residence to Mr. and Mrs. John McLucas. Restored in consultation with iconic midcentury designer Ruth Adler Schnee, the McLucas house represents the culmination of Girard’s Detroit design work at midcentury. Stunning color photographs capture the unique design elements—including the boldly colored glazed brick walls of the atrium—reminiscent of Girard’s role as color consultant for the GM Tech Center. Original Girard drawings for the building plan, interior spaces, and custom-designed furniture document the mind of a modernist master at work and are made available to the public for the first time in this beautiful book.

Alexander Girard, Architect is a beautiful, informative book suited for enthusiasts of Alexander Girard, the midcentury modern aesthetic, and Detroit history, art, and architecture.

About the author:

Deborah Lubera Kawsky completed her undergraduate studies at Smith College and her PhD in art history at Princeton University. She is an adjunct associate professor at Madonna University, where she teaches art history courses and leads European study-abroad trips.

Michigan Modern: Design that Shaped America

michigan-modernIn every way, this copiously illustrated book pleases and informs. Its editors have understood the mission, perfectly, to make a case for Michigan Modernism, not as a derivative response to ideas imported from elsewhere but as an original expression that “grew from the state’s indigenous industries and the populations they served.” (Alec Hess, Foreword) The proof comes by way of 28 essays and interviews presented in 4 categories of inquiry.

The presence of such a wide range of topics derives from the scope of the project, elegantly explained by Brian D. Conway, State Historic Preservation Officer, in his Preface. What began as an effort to protect Modern buildings and resources in Michigan evolved into the development of a website (michiganmodern.com) and then a desire to inform the larger population, through museum exhibitions and symposia. The first stage was planned with Greg Wittkopp of the Cranbrook Art Museum and located at Cranbrook (June 2013). The second stage was hosted by the Grand Rapids Art Museum in partnership with Kendall College of Art and Design (June 2014). The exhibition of objects, models and photographs was expanded for the second show in Grand Rapids; photographs of both exhibitions appear in the book.

The SHIPO (State Historical Preservation Office) plan has now reached a moment of superb achievement with the publication of this book. A second filled with additional photographs is being planned. With these two flagship publications, the way is now open for the various localities–Detroit, Ann Arbor, Cranbrook and Grand Rapids–to pursue further an understanding of how modernism arose from within their indigenous cultures.

The 4 categories of inquiry will help direct further thinking and discovery: The Beginnings, Modernizing the American Lifestyle, Michigan Modern’s Architecture Legacy, and Michigan’s Influence. Further research might best address the category of influence, as we live now in the context of rich legacies of design (automobile, furniture, city planning and landscape) and architecture. The task ahead will involve the painstaking work of investigating the personal stories of so many remarkable and visionary designers as well as those who, one way or another, occasioned their designs.

There is no substitute for owning this book. At the least an individual topic and the photographs accompanying it will lift one up to a level of speculation, and in the right mood either enlist a sublime nostalgia or induce a feeling of transcendence. At their best these Michigan designs embrace revolutionary, utopian dream forms. The essays provide the necessary narrative infrastructures, and in every instance introduce new knowledge and eye opening insights.

The superior effort to document each photograph reinforces a positive first impression that this is a very serious book about a subject of high significance. And yet, the scrupulous documentation conveys a democratic theme: of a vast, shared but fragmented enterprise, carried forward with a delight in creative activity and with an intense desire to bring into being a better and more beautiful world. The best known players have now received shining attention in Michigan Modern, but there are many more to know about, and their contributions, too, in time will be brought to light.

Jeffrey Welch

 

Jeffrey is a member of the A2Modern Board of Directors.  He is a retired teacher from Cranbrook Schools who also had the pleasure of residing on the Cranbrook property.

Mid-Michigan Modern

midmichigan-modern

Mid-Michigan Modern: From Frank Lloyd Wright to Googie

by Susan Bandes – Hardcover – October 1, 2016

From 1940 to 1970 mid-Michigan had an extensive and varied legacy of modernist architecture. While this book explores buildings by renowned architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Alden B. Dow, and the Keck brothers, the text—based on archival research and oral histories—focuses more heavily on regional architects whose work was strongly influenced by international modern styles.

Three Michigan Architects

three-michigan-architects-brigham-metcalf-and-osler-256px-256pxThree Michigan Architects: Brigham, Metcalf, and Osler

by Joseph Rosa and Nancy Bartlett

In 2014 the University of Michigan Museum of Art, as part of their U-M Collections Collaborations series, held a number of exhibition showing the work of three very talented Ann Arbor architects who helped define the mid-century modern style. This UMMA Books publication lovingly recreates and summarizes the many photographs, blueprints, and renderings that were on display.

Historic Ann Arbor: An Architectural Guide By Susan Wineberg & Patrick McCauley (update on booksellers)

Update: “Historic Ann Arbor: An Architectural Guide” by Susan Wineberg & Patrick McCauley and published by the Ann Arbor Historical Foundation can be purchased at:

Bookbound
Downtown Home & Garden
Museum on Main Street
(Washtenaw County Historical Society)
Nicola’s
The Mail Shoppe

It is a well researched guide to over 350 properties in Ann Arbor.