Mid Michigan Modern

"In this new expanded edition, Susan J. Bandes adds descriptions of additional buildings and discusses projects by ten additional architects"--

Michigan Modern: Design That Shaped America is an impressive collection of important essays touching on all aspects of Michigan’s architecture and design heritage. The Great Lakes State has always been known for its contributions to twentieth-century manufacturing, but it’s only beginning to receive wide attention for its contributions to Modern design and architecture. Brian D. Conway, Michigan’s State Historic Preservation Officer, and Amy L. Arnold, project manager for Michigan Modern, have curated nearly thirty essays and interviews from a number of prominent architects, academics, architectural historians, journalists, and designers, including historian Alan Hess, designers Mira Nakashima, Ruth Adler Schnee, and Todd Oldham, and architect Gunnar Birkerts, describing Michigan’s contributions to Modern design in architecture, automobiles, furniture and education.

Michigan Modern: An Architectural Legacy takes readers on a privileged tour of iconic buildings and interiors designed by some of the world¿s most renowned and celebrated architects and interior designers. Each of the 34 selected projects is carefully documented to record its place in art history and the story behind both its architect and client.

Alden Dow (active 1930s-1970s) produced more than five hundred designs—often daringly modern structures. This book traces Alden Dow's life and work as well as the intensely personal philosophy that governed everything he did: houses, churches, schools, business and civic structures, and even a new town in Texas. Dow changed the face of his hometown of Midland, Michigan, leaving more than one hundred buildings, including his Home and Studio, a National Historic Landmark. 185 color and 220 black-and-white illustrations.

This revised edition of Buildings of Michigan (first published in 1993) presents the architecture of the Upper and Lower peninsulas of Michigan, which are surrounded by four of the Great Lakes. From the Greek, Gothic, Italianate, Queen Anne, and Richardsonian Romanesque structures of the nineteenth century to the international, renowned modern buildings of the mid-twentieth century and the green and sustainable buildings of the twenty-first century, this book explores Michigan's history and covers the full spectrum of high-style and vernacular architecture and the building materials particular to the state. Surveying the architecture of Detroit and many other cities and villages, this volume examines such structures as early inns and houses along the Sauk Trail, the mine locations of the Copper and Iron ranges, the sandstone architecture of the Lake Superior region, the concrete buildings of Alpena, lighthouses and lifesaving stations of the Upper Great Lakes, the state's numerous bridges, the great houses of automobile industrialists in Grosse Pointe, the factories of Albert Kahn, the mid-twentieth-century buildings of Alden B. Dow and Minoru Yamasaki, and contributions of numerous local architects who have added to Michigan's architectural heritage. This new edition introduces buildings from the recent past and the present; discusses broad, sweeping cultural landscapes, historical parks, greenways, and linear parks; and showcases triumphs in historic preservation. As Detroit transforms itself from a city with a declining population and without the economic stability of the automobile industry, the book looks at how the city is reinventing itself. (Examples include Midtown, where the huge medical, academic, and cultural centers spark residential and retail development; the Detroit riverfront, which connects to open land converted to gardens, parks, and greenways; the viable close-in historic Woodbridge and Corktown neighborhoods, where residents have stayed; and Ford Field, Comerica Park, and the downtown theaters and casinos that entertain visitors.) Linkages of buildings by geography and theme receive attention. Heritage areas, river corridors, and highway routes arrange buildings and natural areas into comprehensible groups, and over 400 illustrations--including photographs, maps, and drawings--enhance the more than 950 entries. A volume in the Buildings of the United States series of the Society of Architectural Historians

Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) President's Medal Award (multi-media representation of architecture). Canada's most distinguished architectural critics and scholars offer fresh insights into the country's unique modern and contemporary architecture. Beginning with the nation's centennial and Expo 67 in Montreal, this fifty-year retrospective covers the defining of national institutions and movements: • How Canadian architects interpreted major external trends • Regional and indigenous architectural tendencies • The influence of architects in Canada's three largest cities: Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver Co-published with Canadian Architect, this comprehensive reference book is extensively illustrated and includes fifteen specially commissioned essays.

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.

In 1959, three writers - all intimately familiar with the Native American culture of their time and locale - collaborated to produce a study entitled 'Religious Customs of Modern Michigan Algonquians'. That study is reproduced here - for the first time in book form - along with a substantive editor's introduction.