ALBERT KAHN

his BIOGRAPHY

Albert Kahn (1869-1942) was born in Rhaunen, Germany, the oldest son of a rabbi. The Kahns and their six children emigrated to the United States in 1880. Albert Kahn received his professional training as an apprentice to an architect with the firm of Mason and Rice in Detroit. In 1891, Albert Kahn was awarded a scholarship for a year's travel in Europe. During his travels Albert Kahn met the young architect Henry Bacon, and the two of them traveled together in Italy, France, Germany, and Belgium. In 1896, Albert Kahn married Ernestine Krolik and formed a partnership with George W. Nettleton and Alexander B. Trowbridge. Trowbridge left to become dean of the Cornell University School of Architecture in 1897, Nettleton died in 1900, and by 1902, Albert Kahn was in practice alone. Albert Kahn 's practice is intenation-ally known for industrial work; his more traditional designs are less well known.

Because Albert Kahn practiced in Detroit, Albert Kahn 's career closely followed the growth of the automotive industry. Albert Kahn was introduced to Henry B. Joy in 1902. Joy was instrumental in Albert Kahn 's selection for projects at the University of Michigan, and when Joy became manager of the Packard Motor Car Co. in 1903, Albert Kahn was named architeet for tbe company. That same year, Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Co.

Albert Kahn 's early industriai work was conservative in nature. Nine factories were designed between 1903 and 1905 for the Packard Motor Car Co. The first concreteframed building dated from 1905. This advanced structural system depended on the manufacture of appropriate reinforcing rods. Although Albert Kahn 's brother was an engineer and manufacturer of reinforcing, the Albert Kahn bar did not succeed in the market. However, the experience with the concrete structure put Albert Kahn 's office in the forefront of industrial design.

Many industrial commissions followed. Rather than relegating the design to junior staff, Albert Kahn carefully designed the factories, using such designers as his associate Ernest Wilby to assist him. Albert Kahn 's factories were the first to use steel sash in conereteframed structures. Albert Kahn helped develop buildings for continuously moving assembly lines. His factories were known for the maximum use of natural lighting and ventilation, using continuous strip windows, roof monitors, or skylights. Albert Kahn pioneered the use of longspan steel trusses, resuiting in large floor arens free of columns.

There were a number of fumous factories. Among the early ones was the Ford Motor Co. in Highland Park, Michigan (1909), which was under one roof. Among later buildings for Ford was u 1918 building with cantilevered balconies insde the factory, allowing easier handling of materials and parts Plants for the Burroughs Adding Machine Co. in Detroit (l919) and for the Fisher Body Co. in Cleveland, Ohio (1921), were other early works.

In 1917, Albert Kahn began the design of the Ford River Rouge Plant in Detroit. The first of the buildings (Building B) was 0.5 mi long, housing the entire assembly hne for automobiles. In 1936, Albert Kahn designed the Chrysler Corp. plant in Detroit using large trusses and glass curtain walls In 1938, Albert Kahn designed another Chrysler Corp. plant at Warren Michigan, for the HalfTon Truck Plant of the Dodge Divil sion. It featured longspan trusses and roof monitors as well as glass curtain walls. This series of buildings was elegant in design, using advanced construction technology.

Albert Kahn 's office designed many other buildings in addition to the industrial work. These included several buildings for the University of Michigan, office buildings such as the General Motors Building in Detroit, and luxury residential projects, particularly for the homes of automotive executives.

Albert Kahn 's World War II buildings included the Glen Martin bomber plant at Baltimore and the Willow Run Bomber plant for Ford, later used for automobile manufacture and assembly. Because of wartime blackout regulations. the latter building was windowless and electrically lit.

Albert Kahn worked continuously up to 1942. completing 57 years  practice as an architect. and the firm continues under the name of Albert Kahn Associates, Inc. A high point of Albert Kahn's fame was his influence on European work. In 1929, a Soviet commission touring Delroit asked him to design a tractor plant in Stalingrad This turned out so well that the firm built over 500 factories in the USSR in two years and trained many Soviet engineers and technicians to assist in the building program.

The comparison of Albert Kahn 's work with Peter Behrens's monumental work in Germany for the A.E.G. or Walter Gropius's and Adolph Meyers's 1911 Fagus Shoelast Factory at Alfeld an der Liene clarifies Ihe differences between European and American approaches. The European examples were more designed. with the use of brick, neoclassic forms, and delight in the technology that allowed such details as wrapping glass around corners. The spirit of that work differs from Knhn. who evolved industrial buildings without prototypes or use of traditional design concepts. The industrial building was of contiunued aesthetic interest as reflected in Gropius's design of the Bauhaus at Dessau. Germany. in 1926 The best of Albert Kahn 's work implies a different aesthetic based on simple construction. standard materials, and ease of construction. In this sense it was more like the manufactured product than a symbolic interpretation. 

Kahn designed buildings

• Dexter M. Ferry summer residence in Unadilla Center, New York; early 19th century stone farmhouse remodeled in 1890. Extant today. Known as Milfer Farm, held by Ferry heirs today. Kahn also designed the "Honeymoon Cottage" on the estate, one of the earliest prefabricated houses built.
• Detroit Athletic Club (1915), on Madison Avenue, Detroit
• William Livingstone House (1892–93), in Brush Park, Detroit. The French Renaissance house was demolished on September 15, 2007. The Livingstone house in Detroit's Brush Park was Kahn's first commission. Livingstone founded the Dime Savings Bank. The William Livingstone House was commemorated in a painting by Lowell Bioleau entitled Open House which was unveiled the day of its demolition.
• Hiram Walker offices, 1892, in Windsor, Ontario
• Bernard Ginsburg House, 1898
• Detroit Racquet Club, 1902 (Kahn designed but was not allowed membership at the time, being Jewish) 626 Woodbridge Street, Detroit
• Temple Beth El, 1903, Kahn's home synagogue, now the Bonstelle Theatre of Wayne State University
• Brandeis-Millard House, 1904, located in the Country Club Historic District of Midtown Omaha, Nebraska is the only known work by Kahn in the state.
• Palms Apartments, 1903, 1001 East Jefferson Avenue, Detroit
• Belle Isle Aquarium and Conservatory, 1904, and Casino, 1907 on Belle Isle, Detroit
• Albert Kahn House, 1906, Brush Park, Detroit, Michigan (his personal residence)

Albert Kahn's house on Mack Ave in Detroit, MI, where he lived from 1906 to 1942

• Addison Hotel, 1905
• Frederick Stearns Building addition, 1906
• George N. Pierce Plant, 1906, in Buffalo, New York
• Willistead Manor, 1906, home of the son of Hiram Walker in Windsor, Ontario
• Battle Creek Post Office, 1907, concrete construction method used again later that year in Kahn's Packard plant
• Packard Plant, 1907, Kahn's tenth factory for Packard but first concrete one
• Cranbrook House, 1907, at Cranbrook Educational Community
• Highland Park Ford Plant, 1908, Highland Park, Michigan
• Edwin S. George Building, 1908
• Kaufman Footwear Building, 1908, Kitchener, Ontario
• Mahoning National Bank, 1909, Youngstown, Ohio
• National Theatre, 1911, 118 Monroe Street, Detroit
• Bates Mill Building Number 5, 1914, in Lewiston, Maine
• Kales Building, 1914, 18-story white building at Adams and Park on Grand Circus Park in Detroit built for S. S. Kresge Company
• Liggett School-Eastern Campus, 1914, 2555 Burns, Detroit; Detroit Waldorf School since 1964
• Garden Court Apartments, 1915, 2900 East Jefferson Avenue, Detroit
• Vinton Building, 1916
• Russell Industrial Center, 1916
• Detroit News Building, 1917
• NY Headquarters, Ford Motor Company, 1917, in New York, New York, now home of Sean John and Bad Boy Worldwide
• Multiple buildings and Aircraft Maintenance Hangars (Bldg 777&781 on Langley AFB, VA), 1917-1919.
• Motor Wheel Factory, Lansing, Michigan, 1918. Currently being renovated into residential lofts.
• General Motors Building, 1919, largest office building in the world at that time, GM world headquarters, now State of Michigan offices

Albert Kahn's General Motors Building (now Cadillac Place), 3044 West Grand Boulevard, Detroit, MI

• Fisher Body Plant 21, 1921
• First Congregational Church addition, 1921
• Phoenix Mill, 1921
• First National Building, Detroit, 1922
• Detroit Police Headquarters, 1923
• Temple Beth El, 1923 (a new building to replace the 1903 temple), currently Citadel of Faith Church
• Walker Power Plant, 1923, in Windsor, Ontario
• Ford Motor Company Lamp Factory, 1921–1925, in Flat Rock, Michigan
• Detroit Free Press Building, 1925
• 1001 Covington Apartments, 1925, Detroit
• Ford Hanger at The Lansing Municipal Airport, Lansing, Illinois (South Suburban Chicago Area), 1926
• S. S. Kresge World Headquarters, 1927, 5½ story horizontally massed Art Deco structure
• Edsel and Eleanor Ford House, 1927, home of Henry Ford's son, built as an English manor house in Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan.
• Fisher Building, 1927, skyscraper in Detroit's New Center district
• Argonaut Building 1928, General Motors laboratory, now owned by the College for Creative Studies, Detroit
• Detroit Times Building, 1929 (Demolished, 1978) 
• Griswold Building, 1929, 1214 Griswold Street, Detroit
• New Center Building, 1930, 7430 Second Avenue, adjacent to the Fisher Building in Detroit's New Center district
• River Rouge Glass Plant, 1930
• The Dearborn Inn 1931, world's first airport hotel, built and decorated in the Georgian style
• Congregation Shaarey Zedek 1932, 2900 West Chicago Boulevard, Detroit
• Ford Rotunda, designed for Chicago World's Fair, 1934 (burned, 1963)
• Dodge Truck Plant, 1938, Warren, Michigan
• Burroughs Adding Machine Plant, 1938, Plymouth, Michigan
• Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant, 1941, produced 1/4 of American WWII tanks, continued tank production until 1997, Warren, Michigan
• Upjohn Tower designed for the Upjohn Company of Kalamazoo, Michigan, used both for production and administration. Demolished in 2005 after Pfizer buyout.
• Willow Run Bomber Plant, 1941, used by Ford for bombers during the war, then by Kaiser for cars, then by GM for transmissions
• Ford Assembly Building, California

BUILDINGS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Campus Buildings Built During His Career (Source of this list: Schreiber, Penny. “Albert Kahn’s Campus.” The Ann Arbor Observer, January, 2002, pp. 27–33):

• Engineering Building (now West Hall) 1904
• Psychopathic Hospital (demolished) 1906
• Hill Auditorium 1913
• Helen Newberry Residence Hall 1915
• Natural Science Building 1915 
• Betsy Barbour Residence Hall 1920
• General Library (now Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library) 1920 
• William L. Clements Library 1923 
• Angell Hall 1924
• Physical Science Building (now Randall Laboratory) 1924
• University Hospital (demolished) 1925
• Couzens Hall 1925
• East Medical Building (now C. C. Little Building) 1925
• Thomas H. Simpson Memorial Institute 1927 
• University Museums Building 1928 
• Burton Memorial Tower 1936
• Neuropsychiatric Institute (demolished) 1938

Greek Organization Buildings: 

• Sigma Phi House (1900), 426 North Ingalls Street (demolished)
• Delta Upsilon House (1903), 1331 Hill Street
• Collegiate Sorosis House (1905–06), 1501 Washtenaw Avenue
• Delta Gamma House (1912), 1205 Hill Street
• Psi Upsilon House (1925), 1000 Hill Street