Albert Kahn (architect)

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For other persons named Albert Kahn, see Albert Kahn (disambiguation).
Albert Kahn

Albert Kahn
Born March 21, 1869
Rhaunen, Rhineland-Palatinate Germany
Died December 8, 1942
Detroit, Michigan, USA
Nationality American
Occupation architect
Known for Detroit


Albert Kahn (born March 21, 1869 in Rhaunen, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, died December 8, 1942 in Detroit, Michigan, USA) was the foremost American industrial architect of his day. He is sometimes called, the architect of Detroit.

Albert Kahn designed Detroit Police Headquarters at 1300 Beaubien.
Albert Kahn designed Detroit Police Headquarters at 1300 Beaubien.

Kahn came to Detroit in 1880 at the age of 11. His father Joseph was trained as a rabbi. His mother Rosalie had a talent for the visual arts and music. As a teenager he got a job at the architectural firm of Mason and Rice. Kahn won a year's scholarship to study abroad in Europe, where he toured with another young architecture student, Henry Bacon, who would later design the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

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[edit] Biography

The architectural firm Albert Kahn Associates was founded in 1895. He developed a new style of construction where reinforced concrete replaced wood in factory walls, roofs, and supports. This gave better fire protection and allowed large volumes of unobstructed interior. Packard Motor Car Company's factory built in 1907 was the first development of this principle.

The success of the Packard plant interested Henry Ford in Kahn's designs. Kahn designed Ford Motor Company's Highland Park plant, begun in 1909 where Ford consolidated production of the Ford Model T and perfected the assembly line. On Bob-Lo Island, Henry Ford had a dance hall designed and built by Albert Kahn, which in 1903 was billed as the world's second largest.[1]

Kahn later designed, in 1917, the massive half-mile-long Ford River Rouge Plant. The Rouge grew into the largest manufacturing complex in the U.S., with a force that peaked at 120,000 workers. According to the company website, "By 1938, Kahn's firm was responsible for 20 percent of all architect-designed factories in the U.S."

Kahn was responsible for many of the buildings and houses in Walkerville, Ontario built under direction of Walker family including Willistead Manor. Kahn's interest in historically styled buildings is also seen in his houses in Indian Village, Detroit, Cranbrook House, the Edsel Ford House and the Dearborn Inn, the world's first airport hotel.

Kahn's Conservatory on Belle Isle in Detroit, Michigan
Kahn's Conservatory on Belle Isle in Detroit, Michigan

Kahn also designed the landmark 28-story Art Deco Fisher Building in Detroit, considered one of the most beautiful elements of the Detroit skyline. In 1928, the Fisher building was honored by the Architectural League of New York as the year's most beautiful commercial structure.

Kahn's firm's Moscow office built 521 factories between 1930 and 1932. [2]

Kahn also designed many of the classic buildings at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. These include the Burton Tower, Hill Auditorium, the Hatcher Graduate Library, and Clements Library.

A frequent collaborator with Kahn was architectural sculptor Corrado Parducci. In all Parducci worked on about 50 Kahn commissions including banks, office buildings, newspaper buildings, mausoleums, hospitals and private residences.

Kahn's firm designed a large number of the army airfield and naval bases for the United States government during World War I. By World War II, Kahn's 600-person office was involved in making Detroit the Arsenal of Democracy including designing the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant, and the Willow Run Bomber Plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan where Ford Motor Company mass produced B-24 Liberator bombers, Kahn's last building. Albert Kahn worked on more than 1,000 commissions from Henry Ford and hundreds for other automakers.

As of 2006, Kahn had around 60 buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Not all of Kahn's works have been preserved. The Donovan Building, later occupied by Motown Records, abandoned for decades, was demolished as part of Detroit's beautification plan before the Super Bowl in 2006.

Ten Albert Kahn buildings are recognized by official Michigan historical markers.[3]


He is not related to American architect Louis Kahn.

[edit] Kahn-designed buildings

Albert Kahn's General Motors Building (now Cadillac Place, 3044 West Grand Boulevard, Detroit, MI
Albert Kahn's General Motors Building (now Cadillac Place, 3044 West Grand Boulevard, Detroit, MI
Albert Kahn's house on Mack Ave in Detroit, MI, where he lived from 1906-1942.
Albert Kahn's house on Mack Ave in Detroit, MI, where he lived from 1906-1942.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "Bob-Lo, island of the white wood", http://forums.detnews.com/history/story/index.cfm?category=business&id=87, Jenny Nolan, "The Detroit News", accessed November 24, 2007
  2. ^ "Industry's Architect.", Time (magazine), Monday, June 29, 1942. Retrieved on 2008-04-04. "In 1928 the Soviet Government, after combing the U.S. for a man who could furnish the building brains for Russia's industrialization, offered the job to Kahn. Twenty-five Kahn engineers and architects went to Moscow. They had to start from scratch." 
  3. ^ Michigan Historical Markers
  4. ^ Profile of S. S. Kresge World Headquarters Building.Detroit1701.org. Retrieved on November 24, 2007.

[edit] References and further reading

  • Bridenstine, James (1989). Edsel and Eleanor Ford House. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0814321615. 
  • Fogelman, Randall (2004). Detroit's New Center. Arcadia. ISBN 0738532711. 
  • Lewis, David L. "Ford and Kahn" Michigan History 1980 64(5): 17-28. Ford commissioned architect Albert Kahn to design factories
  • Matuz, Roger (2007). Albert Kahn, Architect of Detroit. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 9780814329566. 
  • Sobocinski, Melanie Grunow (2005). Detroit and Rome: building on the past. Regents of the University of Michigan. ISBN 0933691092. 

[edit] External links

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Architects and sculptors of metropolitan Detroit
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Gordon W. Lloyd · Harry J. Rill · John M. Donaldson · Henry T. Bush · George D. Mason · Marcus Burrowes · William E. Higgenbotham · Louis Kamper · Fred L. Smith · Albert Kahn · Joseph N. French · Eliel Saarinen · Wirt C. Rowland · C. Howard Crane · William E. Kapp · Charles N. Agree · Minoru Yamasaki · Eero Saarinen · William Kessler · Eric J. Hill · Yousif B. Ghafari · Gino Rossetti · Matthew L. Rossetti · Eugene C. Hopkins · Victor Saroki · S. Kenneth Neumann · Mark Nickita
Visiting architects
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Visiting architectural
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See also Architecture of metropolitan Detroit