The tour started in the Art Academy Museum with a welcome and introduction by Kevin Adkisson. Kevin covered the biographies of George G. Booth and Ellen S. Booth, Cranbrook’s founders, and the history of the community. Then it was on to the Collections Wing for our group of twenty.
On the way in, the group passed a niche framing a maquette of a figure titled “Precision Craftsmanship,” by Cranbrook Art Academy sculptor, Carl Milles. It was made for the great Hall of Progress in the General Motors building at the Chicago World’s Fair: Century of Progress, 1933. At the fair the worker would stand 16′ high on a pedestal 9′ high.
First Stop: Cranbrook Archives Reading Room, where architectural drawings, letters, inventory materials, and artifacts, such as a dress designed by Eva-Lisa “Pipsan” Saarinen, were on display around the room. The entire Saarinen family participated in the design and dressing of the Kingswood building. Eliel Saarinen conceived the building, including the leaded glass windows and the Green Lobby with its translucent Pewabic tiles. Loja Saarinen, Eliel’s wife, designed the textiles, such as the large curtains for the entrance doors, and curtains for the classroom, library and dormitory windows, carpet runners for the public corridors, and rugs and mats for the dormitory. Besides furniture, Eliel’s son, Eero, designed the ceiling light panel for the auditorium (this dome form was used again for his Irwin Union Bank & Trust building, in Columbus, IN), and Eliel’s daughter, Pipsan, designed the stenciling for the auditorium walls, the auditorium stage curtain, and the door panels for the private dining room above and visible from both the dining hall and the auditorium.
Second Stop: Upstairs from the Archive Reading Room, in the Plaza Vault, Kevin had on display Eliel Saarinen designed furniture, silver, textiles and other artifacts.
This silver service was expressly designed for use in Saarinen House. Eliel Saarinen invented and patented the design for a short-bladed knife. According to Kevin, this particular silver pattern is still available for purchase.
Kevin is explaining how the museum obtained from Finland the blond table and chair behind his head. They are originals from Eliel Saarinen’s Helsinki Railroad Station (1914). To the left: a Kingswood dining hall sideboard with silver service, ceramic place setting, and chair behind.
Next Stop: Entrance to the auditorium/dining hall/dormitory block on the Kingswood Oval. The site of the large leaded glass window in the central block was, at first, going to be the main entrance to this wing, but later the entrance was moved to the left side where the columned porch provided sheltered access.
To replace the original entrance porch, Eliel Saarinen designed this magnificent leaded glass window featuring the stacking motif characteristic throughout the Kingswood building.
The Kingswood Dining Hall, with tables and chairs, the Queen of the May tapestry on the wall, and leaded glass clerestory windows. Note the two aluminum torchiers flanking the tapestry.
Across from the Dining Hall, the Kingswood Auditorium expands the space to accommodate very large groups that can circulate from one to the other. When preferred, both dining hall and auditorium spaces can be sealed off by means of heavy, leaded glass pocket doors.
The Green Lobby is the ceremonial reception area for Kingswood, with the Dean’s office to the right, and access to the library wing behind. The Green Lobby space divides the dining hall/auditorium/dormitory area, to the right, from the classroom area, to the left.
The room pictured below is in the study hall wing, part of the classroom area arrayed around the Diana Courtyard. This room is now an informal gathering space in the Kingswood library.
Our Last Stop: The Kingswood Weaving Studio. Established by Loja Saarinen when the school opened in 1931, this room affirms that the arts remain a central element in a Cranbrook education. There are 60 looms in use today. Kevin had ready for us a newly finished weaving (rather reweaving) of a Loja Saarinen design for Saarinen House. This curtain panel took 4 months to weave and was funded by a grant from Finlandia Foundation National and donors to the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research’s 2022 “House Party” fundraiser. It was woven by Cranbrook alumnae, Paula Stebbins Becker (Cranbrook Academy of Art Fiber Department 1993) and Sim Rosseau (Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School 2017).
Here Kevin is unwrapping and holding it up for display. The curtain panel was woven on a Cranbrook loom, especially designed at Cranbrook for use by Studio Loja Saarinen.
The weaving studio exits onto the great entrance porch across from the Green Lobby. When the group spilled out onto the entrance porch, the sky was blue and the sun was shining even as a light squall filled up the Diana Courtyard with swirling snow. It was a scene from Fellini, for sure, and an appropriate conclusion for this magical experience conducted by Kevin Adkisson, The Man Who Knows.
Photos courtesy of Susan Wineberg and Jeffrey Welch.
Text and layout by Jeffrey Welch
By Grace Shackman and Jeffrey Welch
Techbuilt homes were designed by New England architect Carl Koch to help alleviate the post WWII housing shortage by developing a way to quickly and easily assemble them using pre-made components. The parts were interchangeable to give the buyer a house that met their needs and taste and that worked for the specific site.
Techbuilt houses offered an attractive two-level interior arrangement in which the lower level functioned as a quasi-basement and the upper level as a quasi-attic but with no loss of functional space. The gentle gable and open area overhead gave to the upper level a cathedral ceiling while the lower level, set in three feet below ground level, allowed the use of every square inch of floor space. In a bow to Michigan winters several Techbuilts were clad in brick.
These houses were scattered around town, wherever clients found an empty lot. Techbuilts were manufactured in Massachusetts and delivered in two truckloads containing basic parts, such as pre-cut beams, wall panels (with or without windows) insulated with fiberglass, and sliding glass doors. Different from other prefab houses, Techbuilts had 4′ wide wall panels, giving buyers many options for placing windows and doors.
Siting was determined by the contours of the land. If the site was on hilly terrain, part of the first floor might be underground but part might provide a walk out. If the house was built on a busy street, a solid wall of windowless panels would be put on the street side, but if on a wooded lot, the windows could be put wherever was the best view.
Because of the post and beam construction, the interior space dividers didn’t need to be load-bearing and thus could be put anywhere to create rooms. The houses were rectangular in shape, typically 24′ x 48′, which made it easier to add on rooms as families grew or wanted extras like a sunroom or a screen porch.
Carl Koch, a native of Milwaukee, attended at Harvard College and continued his studies at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, receiving an MA in 1937. It was just at this time that Dean Joseph Hudnut brought German modernist Walter Gropius onto the faculty of the HGSD. While traveling in Europe on a fellowship, Koch spent six months studying with the Swedish modernist architect Sven Markelius. This was a formative experience. On his return to the United States, while teaching architecture at MIT, he became involved in developing several housing projects around Boston, which furthered his interest in prefabricated houses. When he was invited to redesign the prefabricated, metal Lustron House in 1949, for example, he reduced the construction kit of 3,000 parts to just 37 components, and he reduced the weight of the kit by 6,000 pounds. By 1952, he had designed the housing development, Conantum, located in Concord, MA, one of the nation’s first cluster housing developments. The idea for Techbuilt emerged from Conantum, particularly from a design by architect Leon Lipshutz.
In 1953 he started Techbuilt, using as his basic premise the elimination of wasteful attic and basement spaces. In its original conception, the Techbuilt house was shrunk to just two floors, whose entire area would be open living space. The lower floor was built three feet in the ground, leaving the other five feet to let in light. Upstairs, the roof above the living space was gently pitched, which gave the house a softer, more Japanese look and allowed for taller windows that made the space seem bigger and airy. Large windows and sliding doors opened up the gable ends. The mid-level entrance on the side of the house gave easy access to both floors.
In 1955 Techbuilt launched its Space Making Furniture Line. Twenty pieces of furniture were advertised for their flexibility, affordability, and customization but they were never a money maker. They came unassembled, much like Ikea kits today.
Ann Arbor Techbuilt Homes
A2Modern has identified 15 Techbuilt homes in the Ann Arbor area but there are probably more. They were built between 1955-1974. In 1955, James Livingston, a graduate of the University of Michigan school of Architecture, secured the Techbuilt franchise for the Ann Arbor area, three years after earning his architectural degree. With his associate, Bob Chance, he built Techbuilt homes for the next three years.
Bob Chance explained that Livingston was the salesman, helping clients figure out which model would work for them and how to site the house. Because prefabricated houses went against the Frank Lloyd Wright dictum of letting the landscape determine the shape of the house, siting was a crucial concern. The on-site architect was essential for guiding the client as to orienting and landscaping the building. Chance acted as the project manager, figuring out the details, overseeing construction, and working closely with Gene Kurtz, local contractor who often partnered with Livingston. Chance thought that Techbuilt was both “an interesting concept and a good deal financially.”
As of 2022, only one Techbuilt, on Heather Way, had been torn down, while the other identified houses were still standing and in good use. In most cases, the Techbuilts are newer than their neighboring houses, but mature vegetation helps them fit in.
Below is an alphabetical list by street address of Techbuilt houses that have, so far, been identified. If anyone knows of others, or knows more about the houses listed, please let us know using the Contact Us form on our website.
221 Barton Drive
Mary and Dick Burris, 1955. This was the first Techbuilt in Michigan and newsworthy enough to rate an article in the Argus Eyes, the Argus Camera employee newsletter. It was different from later ones as the first story was entirely in the ground. The article says it was put together by a local builder, but the Burrises did all the painting and staining, both inside and out. The oven, automatic dishwasher, stove burners, and garbage disposal came with the package. See Old News for the Argus Eyes article of December 1956.
1441 Catalina Drive
Daniel L. and Margaret Treacy, 1956. Techbuilts appealed to architects. Ann Arbor architect, Daniel Treacy, worked with the local firms of James Livingston and Charles W. Lane, and then he joined the office of Minoru Yamasaki in Troy.
1300 Chalmers Drive, 1955. The fourth owners, Jesse and Anitra Gordon, made four additions, including a sunroom and a balcony, that go perfectly with the original house. Jesse especially appreciated the many windows that allowed him to see the woodsy landscape whichever way he looked.
2025 Crestland Drive
George N. May, 1958. George May worked as a draftsman at Ford Motor Company. This house, built across the street from Pattengill School on a corner lot, elegantly negotiates a high traffic area and a widening street that leads to the school’s student drop off.
2831 Daleview Drive, Val and Paul Rasmussen, 1974. Paul Rasmussen was Professor of Chemistry at the University of Michigan. “It was a great house to live in, lots of glass, tall ceilings, great views in all directions,” recalls Val Rasmussen of her house, which is the last, or almost the last Techbuilt built locally. Beyond framing, the electrical, plumbing, and heating systems were also designed and done on site as were the interior walls. The Rasmussens ordered Techbuilt kitchen cabinets, which Val says had “great-wooden doors, tall enough to go along the high ceiling. The materials were excellent.” They lived there 35 years before moving to a one-story house.
2550 Devonshire Road
Gordon and Marion Brown, 1956. Chemistry Professor Gordon Brown, working in the School of Public Health, directed one of 27 labs across the country conducting research into developing the polio vaccine.
2814 Glazier Way, Raymond and Daphne Grew, 1973. Raymond Grew was a professor of history at the University of Michigan.
16 Heatheridge Avenue
Alfred and Georgia Conard, 1965. Alfred Conard was a law professor at the University of Michigan and president of the Association of American Law Schools. According to the Ann Arbor News, the exterior of the house was a Techbuilt design and “popular in Ann Arbor since last summer.” The inside was designed by Livingston. The lower level was the living area, and the upper for sleeping. See the story and pictures of the house in Old News.
638 Northside Avenue
Jordan Humberstone, 1957. Jordan Humberstone was the district manager at Balfour & Co. and an expert in antiques and American culture. He was the designer of the Bicentennial Program for the Ann Arbor public schools’ continuing education program.
3164 Sunnywood Drive
Irving and Jane Brown, 1956. Irving Brown was an engineer for Detroit Transmission. When later owners, Jim and Linda Elert, founding members of a2modern, moved into this Techbuilt, the original footprint was untouched. It had four bedrooms and a full bath upstairs, mudroom, kitchen, half bath, and living/dining room/fireplace on the first level. The main entrance to the house was on the long side, between the first and second stories. The house was built on a hill, with the living/dining rooms opening to the back yard with sliding glass doors. The Elerts added a porch. The next owners, Katherine and Bob Bodary, turned the two bedrooms at the rear of the house overlooking the backyard into a master bedroom. The next owner added an enormous two-story addition adjacent to the front entrance.
910 Sunset Drive
Professor Edwin H. Sonnecken, 1956. Sonnecken was a programming manager for the Ford Motor Company. The fourth owner, Doug Kelley, lived there for 40 years. He appreciated all the windows that allowed him to enjoy nature in every direction on his one -acre piece of land. He added a front patio, a garage, and a sunroom in the back. He was sad when mobility issues made it necessary to move to a one-story place.
912 Sunset Drive
Wiley and Helene Hitchcock, 1956. Hitchcock was in the University of Michigan department of music.
4051 Thornoaks Drive
Arnold and Elizabeth Kaufman, 1961. Arnold Kaufman was a professor of philosophy and the inventor of the “teach in” at the University of Michigan. Although much altered on the front, the back, which faces the Huron River, is pure Techbuilt.
4194 Thornoaks Drive, Peter and Sandra Lawson, 1974. By the time this was built, Techbuilt had changed their name to Acorn. This model was called Deck House.
1244 Westport Road
Stephen and Lois Withey, 1957. Stephen Withey joined the Institute of Social Research in 1948, was promoted to Program Director in 1951, and served as Director of Survey Research from 1976 to 1981. He was given a dual appointment the department of psychology in 1953. Altogether, he spent forty years at ISR, retiring in 1987.
For more information on Techbuilt homes, see:
https://modernmass.com/carl-koch/
https://thetechbuilthouse.com/
https://www.ncmodernist.org/techbuilt.htm
PURE DESIGN: Emil Lorch, Architectural Education, and Michigan
This essay was first published in “Awards No. 3, AIA Huron Valley Chapter, 2019.” With special thanks to Brad Angelini, Kelsey Jensen and Martin Schwartz.
Minoru Yamasaki’s Northwood Apartments at the University of Michigan by Dale Allen Gyure
This article was originally published in AWARDS, the annual journal of the Huron Valley Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, number 3, fall 2019.
The Ann Arbor District Library has a platform called Old News that reproduces thousands of historic newspaper articles on the web. Now, thanks to our collaboration with the AADL, we have a place for you to view dozens of original articles about mid-century modern homes as they appeared at the time in the local press. Select an address below to view an Old News article, and explore our other links for related material.
Address Architect a2modern link
Author: Grace Shackman
Even Frank Lloyd Wright approved.
Most church groups that need to relocate either buy a church building abandoned by another congregation or build a new church. But in 1946, when the Ann Arbor Unitarian Universalists left their handsome stone church at the corner of State and Huron, they moved to a house on Washtenaw.
According to the church’s current minister, Ken Phifer, using houses is not uncommon among Unitarian congregations; he could name five other examples immediately. “The Unitarians don’t worry about following any architectural standard,” he says. “Every building and every community is different.” He links this to the Unitarian belief that “individuals follow their own path.”
The Unitarians bought the house at 1917 Washtenaw from Dr. Dean Myers, a prominent eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist. Built in 1917 (by coincidence, the year matches its address on Washtenaw), the Swiss chalet-style house was one of the most elegant on a street of distinctive homes. It was well built of sturdy fieldstone and was the pride of its builders, Weinberg and Kurtz. (For years, a picture of the house was featured on the construction firm’s checks.)
The front entry area was flanked by a formal living room on the west and a library and dining room on the east. Sun rooms on each side were entered through French doors. Next to the dining room was the butler’s pantry and beyond that the kitchen and cook’s pantry. The bedrooms on the second floor had adjacent sleeping porches over the sun rooms. On the third floor were luxurious guest quarters and a maid’s apartment with sitting room and bathroom. In the basement, besides the usual storerooms and laundry room, there was a billiard room with wooden pillars and a fireplace.
Myers, who was widowed when the house was built, moved in with his daughter, Dorothy, and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Owens. He was then forty-three years old and at the peak of his career as an innovative eye surgeon. He was also active in community affairs, serving on city council and the school board and as chair of the county Democratic party. An avid golfer, Myers helped lay out the first nine holes of the Barton Hills golf course and was the first player to make a hole-in-one there.
For the first six years in the house, Myers got by with day help, but in 1923, when he married Eleanor Sheldon, the housekeeper at Betsy Barbour, he decided it would be better to have a live-in maid. On the recommendation of friends, he sponsored a seventeen-year-old immigrant girl from Swabia in southern Germany. Carolina Schumacher (she married Gottlob Schumacher in 1930) cooked, washed, and ironed for the family.
Mrs. Schumacher still remembers her first day. She had to enter through the back door because Washtenaw was being paved and was covered with straw. She remembers Dr. Myers as “nice looking, tall and bald headed, always smiling.” (He used to say, she recalls, that “you can’t have brains and hair too.”)
The house was grandly furnished, with oriental rugs throughout and a grand piano in the living room. Before dinner, Myers liked to sing, accompanied by Dorothy at the piano. The Myerses entertained frequently, often other well-known local doctors, like Albert Furstenberg and R. Bishop Canfield, and sometimes visiting out-of-town doctors.
Mrs. Schumacher left the Myerses’ employ when she and her husband started the Old German restaurant. After Mrs. Owens’s death and Dorothy’s decision to move in with a friend, Dr. and Mrs. Myers stayed in the big house until 1946, when they moved to Hildene Manor, the gracious Tudor-style apartment building at 2220 Washtenaw. Dr. Myers died in 1955 and his wife a few years later.
The Ann Arbor Unitarians had been in their church at State and Huron since 1883, and the decision to move was a difficult one. Parishioners–including the children of Jabez Sunderland, the minister under whom the church had been built–realized the historic value of the old building, both architecturally and as a repository of memories. But it had deteriorated, inside and out, and the costs of repair far exceeded the church’s resources. The Depression and then World War II had depleted the membership; when Ed Redman took over the ministry in 1943, there were sixteen contributing member families.
Don Campbell, then the church treasurer, says that the old church “was like a barn–cold, hard to heat, dirty.” Services were held in the library, which was easier to heat, because it was rare for more than thirty-five people to show up.
Ironically, it was Redman’s success in bringing the membership back up that sounded the death knell for the old church. He attracted young families, many with children, and soon the church could not provide the needed Sunday School space, even spreading out to the parsonage next door on State Street. When, in 1945, the Grace Bible Church offered the Unitarians $65,000 for the old building, they accepted the offer and began to search in earnest for a new home. The following year they bought the Myers house for $46,000.
On February 3, 1946, Redman gave his last sermon in the old church. It was entitled “Sixty-Four Glorious Years.” After a few months in Lane Hall, he delivered the premiere sermon in the Myerses’ former living room, calling it “Birth of a New Age.” The house took on an entirely new identity. Church social events were held in the old dining room, while the Sunday School met in the second- and third-floor bedrooms.
The Redmans had planned to live in a parsonage on Packard, but they found the house too small (Redman and his wife, Annette, had five children) and preferred to live closer to the action. A parsonage addition was built at the back of the house, one floor in 1948 and a second in 1955. By the fall of 1951, it was obvious that the church was outgrowing its house. Redman, in his recollections published by the church in 1988, wrote, “The worship services could not be contained in the original living room space of the chalet. John Shepard had installed storm windows in the side porch, and it was quite fully occupied except in the most severe weather. The entry hallway provided additional seating space extending all the way into the original sun room. And the main stairway was also often occupied!”
The church began collecting money for an addition, receiving pledges for $40,000. George Brigham, a prominent architect on the U-M faculty and a church member, was hired to design the addition with an auditorium upstairs and a social hall and kitchen downstairs.
According to Redman’s memoir, Brigham’s charge was “safeguarding the architectural integrity of the existing chalet and the design of additions, which would pick up on the theme of the chalet to create a total facility blending in a unified way with its landscape.” Redman continues proudly: “That the goal was substantially achieved by Professor Brigham was attested when the renowned Unitarian architectural master Frank Lloyd Wright expressed one of his rare approvals by exclaiming, ‘That’s good!’ ”
Today the church stands as completed in 1956, except for a change in the roof line to make the building easier to heat. The section that was the Myers house is used for offices: dining room for main office, master bedroom for minister’s study, Mrs. Owens’s bedroom for the religious education director’s office. The sun room off the living room is the library. The National Organization for Women rents an office on the second floor, and the old parsonage is often rented during the week by preschool groups. The carriage house where the Schumachers lived is now home to a Salvadoran refugee family sponsored by the church.
The Unitarian Universalist church continues to thrive in the space, with a membership of 416, not counting children. Phifer, who fell in love with the building the moment he saw it, says, “I never heard anyone say anything but praiseworthy about it.”
Grace Bible eventually outgrew the old church at State and Huron, moving to an ambitious new complex on South Maple Road. The building sat vacant and deteriorating for several years until it was finally restored as the offices of Hobbs and Black architects. It was an ideal solution: Hobbs and Black got a showpiece office, and the building a proud, well-heeled tenant. “It’s beautiful, but it cost an arm and a leg,” Don Campbell says of the restoration. “The church didn’t have that kind of money.”
[Photo caption from original print edition]: The Unitarians’ additions have been so subtly done that today’s expansive church (above) looks surprisingly unaltered from its days as a private home (right).