Are you looking to round out your summer travel plans or perhaps considering something close to home, or a day trip or building tour? This month we explore the southeastern corner of our state with some suggestions for some of the more unique Detroit area museums and tours that reinforce MAF’s mission of “Advancing awareness of how architecture enriches life.” If you are planning a trip to southeast Michigan this summer, please consider some of the following options to learn more about Michigan Architecture:
Meadow Brook Hall: Rochester
Designed by Smith, Hinchman & Grylls for Matilda Dodge, widow of auto pioneer John Dodge and her second husband, Alfred Wilson. The couple honeymooned in Great Britain and visited the ancient manor houses of England and became so enamored with the buildings that they decided to build a similar style home when they got back to America. The resulting house in the then-rural landscape of Oakland County was completed in 1929 and contains 110-rooms in an 88,000-square foot Tudor Revival style mansion with some of the finest wood carvings, brickwork, interior decoration, and gardens anywhere. The Hall is now owned by Oakland University where it is used as a conference center. It stands as one of America’s castles, a beautifully preserved example of the use to which great wealth was once put.
Meadow Brook Hall History | Rochester, MI
Meadow Brook History | Rochester, MI (meadowbrookhall.org)
Meadow Brook Hall: An American Castle in Rochester — SEEN Magazine (seenthemagazine.com)
Cranbrook Museum and Library: Bloomfield Hills
Toward the end of his long association with Cranbrook, the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen pared down his multi-layered style to an almost abstract modernism. The resulting composition of the 1942 Cranbrook Museum and Library, more than any other, defines not only Cranbrook but also the zenith of Michigan architecture for many people. Almost always photographed with either the Triton Pool or the Orpheus fountain in the foreground, the Museum and Library vista remains the incomparable Cranbrook photo shot and an inspiration to generations of visitors.
Cranbrook Art Museum (Cranbrook Museum and Library) | SAH ARCHIPEDIA (sah-archipedia.org)
History and Mission | About | Cranbrook Art Museum
Holocaust Center: Farmington Hills
Designed by Ken Neumann of Neumann and Smith & Associates and completed in 2003, the building contains symbolism that was never meant to be comfortable. Barbed-wire cable wreaths, a symbolic guard tower and vertical stripes on the building façade all stir uneasy memories of places like Auschwitz, where Nazis murdered millions of Jews. The interior tells an even more powerful story. After a reminder of pre-World War II life in a Jewish village in Europe, visitors wind down ramps and hallways deeper into the darkness of Nazi horrors. Architect Ken Neumann said he left the historical wounds as raw as possible, as a cry for tolerance and as a stark reminder of past crimes against humanity.
About Us – Holocaust Memorial Center (holocaustcenter.org)
Homepage – Holocaust Memorial Center (holocaustcenter.org)
Edsel and Eleanor Ford House: Gross Pointe Shores
A stunning example of how the commitment to design excellence touched every aspect of the family home of an auto baron. Edsel and Eleanor Ford worked with design leaders such as Architect Albert Kahn, landscape architect Jes Jensen, industrial designer Walter Dorwin Teague and visionary artist Diego Rivera to create a house that tells the story of the home life of a prominent American Family.
Edsel and Eleanor Ford House | Detroit Historical Society
Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History: Detroit
When completed in 1997, this major addition to Detroit’s Cultural Center was the largest African American museum in the country and a destination for visitors of all races and ethnic backgrounds. Designed by Sims-Varner, one of the city’s most important African American Architecture firms, the museum features abundant African design imagery, including columns based on a traditional African rope motif.
About The Wright | The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History
Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History — Historic Detroit
Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History | SAH ARCHIPEDIA (sah-archipedia.org)
Detroit Institute of Arts: Detroit
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) ranks among the world’s great museums and stands as an undisputed giant on the Michigan architectural scene. Architect Paul Philippe Cret was born in France and brought a classical training to his commission here in Detroit. The museum, completed in 1927, features a Renaissance-inspired look and the clear, logical arrangement of galleries around the central great hall. Over the years, north and south wings were added amid multiple renovations and expansions, but Cret’s original still commands pride of place, a masterpiece where millions of Detroiters first learned about art.
Home | Detroit Institute of Arts Museum (dia.org)
Detroit Institute of Arts — Historic Detroit
Detroit Institute of Arts | SAH ARCHIPEDIA (sah-archipedia.org)
Detroit Public Library Main Branch: Detroit
Built in 1921, the Detroit Public Library has served generations of Detroiters who have ventured to the library to check out the latest mystery or thriller, track down ancestors in the old files, or research scholarly work in every topic imaginable. The main branch could not have served so many for so long had not the talented Architect Cass Gilbert, later Architect of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington D.C., not done such a fine job creating it. The library remains the perfect place to while away a lunch hour, complete a school paper, or nail down an elusive fact. Facing the Detroit Institute of Arts across Woodward, the library forms one half of Detroit’s great Architectural duo.
Detroit Public Library — Historic Detroit
Detroit Public Library | SAH ARCHIPEDIA (sah-archipedia.org)
Detroit Public Library | Detroit Historical Society
River Rouge Ford Plant: Dearborn
The Rouge became Henry Ford’s ultimate expression of unified and efficient production. Beginning in 1917, the plant ultimately grew to a 2,000-acre facility and employed more than 100,000 workers at its peak capacity in the 1930s. Ford hired Albert Kahn to design the beginnings of the complex and Kahn did not disappoint his client. Kahn’s Rouge glass plant was regarded at the time as an exemplary and humane factory building, with ample natural light provided through clearstory windows marked a new style in industrial design. Through Edsel Ford’s support, Mexican artist Diego Rivera was invited to study the facilities at the Rouge. These studies informed his set of murals known as “Detroit Industry”.
Henry Ford’s Rouge – History – Ford Rouge Factory Tour (thehenryford.org)
Ford Rouge Factory Tour | The Henry Ford
Ford River Rouge Complex – Wikipedia
The Henry Ford: Dearborn
Dedicated in 1929, the museum now known as at The Henry Ford, was designed to house Henry ford’s immense collection of Americana. Designed by Robert O. Derrick, the museum contains over 523,0000 square feet of exhibit space and incorporates faithful reproductions of Independence Hall in Philadelphia as well as the neighboring Congress Hall and Old Philadelphia Hall. If you visit, do not miss Buckminster Fuller’s prototype for the Dymaxion house, which was intended to be a factory manufactured kit that was to be assembled on site.
Visit The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation
Origins of The Henry Ford – The Henry Ford
A Brief History of the Henry Ford Museum | 2019 | Story of the Week
Greenfield Village: Dearborn
Founded by Henry Ford and opened in 1929, Greenfield Village consists of 90 acres of nearly 100 historic buildings, all moved to the site from around the country and reassembled in a vague village formation. Although the site is not historically significant and does not represent one geographic location or a period in time, Greenfield Village is considered a living history museum. The intent of the village is to show how Americans have lived and worked since the founding of the country. (Read the Must See Michigan Architecture article on Greenfield Village in this newsletter)
Historical Village in Detroit | Greenfield Village (thehenryford.org)