Michigan's central role in the Modernist movement leaves lasting impacts

2018-09-07T13:51:00-04:00

If Michigan isn’t the first place that comes to mind when considering [the Modern era] — unlike, say, Germany or France in the 1920s — it should be. The presence of Ford in the city and Booth in the country was enough to make Michigan ground zero for the Modernist experiment [...] making the state home to perhaps the most diverse and best-preserved collection of early Modernist experiments in the world.

A look at Michigan's history in the Modernist movement and the story it tells for our future. M.H. Miller traces three main convergences in the state: Henry Ford's first Model T factory, the Cranbrook school's presence, and numerous influential architects most notably Albert Kahn and Minoru Yamasaki. While this all leaves Michigan with several noteworthy sites, Detroit and surrounding areas are also cautionary markers of modernism's relentless pursuit of "progress" for future generations.

Nature And Design Meet In Lautner's Modern Homes

2011-12-04T22:28:58-05:00

Lautner's homes have appeared in Hollywood movies, but the architect himself wasn't particularly well-known when he died in 1994. Still, in 2011 — the centennial year of Lautner's birth — his hometown of Marquette, Mich., has honored him with two exhibitions: one at Northern Michigan University's DeVos Art Museum and one at the Marquette Regional History Center.

John Lautner's homes have been featured in many movies, but few people actually know who the architect was who came up with the designs. His space-age designs were probably a favourite of the cinematic because the designs themselves look like something which might be dreamed up by a set designer on some back lot in Hollywood.

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Michigan's central role in the Modernist movement leaves lasting impacts

Nature And Design Meet In Lautner's Modern Homes