Albert Kahn (architect)

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Albert Kahn (born March 21, 1869 in Rhaunen ; † December 8, 1942 in Detroit ) was an American architect of German origin who emerged as one of the most important industrial architects of his time. In addition to his numerous buildings for the automotive industry in Detroit and Michigan, he later also worked worldwide.

biography

The Kahn family emigrated to the United States in 1880 when Albert was just 11 years old. His father Joseph was a rabbi in Rhaunen, his mother Rosalie was musically gifted. As an adolescent, he worked for the architecture firm Mason & Rice in Detroit between 1885 and 1895, but did not complete any regular training. In 1891 he won a travel grant from American Architect and Building News magazine for a year-long study trip to Europe with the architect Henry Bacon , who later built the Lincoln Memorial .

Act

General Motors Building , Detroit, 1919–1923
South facade and main entrance of the IG-Farben building

In 1895 Kahn founded Albert Kahn Associates in partnership with George W. Nettleton and Alexander B. Trowbridge, and from 1902 he ran the company alone. His brothers Julius and Moritz also entered the office. For American industrial buildings he used the reinforced concrete process developed by Julius Kahn , which made industrial plants safer, and above all more fire-proof. A first major order with this new construction method was realized by him in 1903-04 for the Packard Motor Car Company , which Henry Ford became aware of, and this led to further large orders.

A historicizing style oriented towards Europe is characteristic of Kahn's architecture. His buildings in Michigan made him known all over the world. Between 1929 and 1932 he built 521 factories with his Moscow office in what was then the Soviet Union , including some vehicle and aircraft plants, beginning in 1929–30 with the Stalingrad tractor plant in Stalingrad and the Chelyabinsk tractor plant in Chelyabinsk . In addition, Kahn was also active in Brazil, Sweden, France, China, Japan and Australia.

During World War II , he made his 600-person office available to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's plan to create an arsenal for democracy and built numerous airports and naval bases.

However, he not only worked for industry and the military, but also created numerous civil buildings. Between 1903 and 1938, he designed around 23 buildings for the University of Michigan alone . In 2006, about 60 of his structures were on the US List of Important Historic Places .

In Germany there are no buildings planned or built by Albert Kahn. However, his General Motors Building (today: Cadillac Place ) in Detroit, erected between 1917 and 1921, is considered a prototype of a construction method that Hans Poelzig used when building the IG-Farben building in Frankfurt. Emine Kayim even speaks of a "direct imitation".

The company founded by Kahn is still in business today and has offices in Detroit, Birmingham (Alabama) and São Paulo .

Buildings planned by Kahn

Appreciations

Poster for the exhibition 150 Years - Architect Albert Kahn in the Center for Building Culture in Mainz

In 2017, on the occasion of Albert Kahn's 75th anniversary of death, the Münster School of Architecture at the FH Münster University of Applied Sciences paid tribute to his work “events lasting several days and one-day symposia at various locations in Germany and the USA with lectures, photo film - and video presentations, virtual 3D models of the steel structures of Kahn with deeply illusionistic impressions of the architecture of the assembly halls ”and an exhibition of large-scale models of the steel halls.

Also in 1917 took place at the Lawrence Technological University in Southfield ( Michigan held a symposium on Kahn's legacy in Detroit).

The Verbandsgemeinde Rhaunen has dedicated a page on its homepage to Albert Kahn as the first “personality from the Verbandsgemeinde”. She is also a co-initiator of the online traveling exhibition 150 Years - Architect Albert Kahn. From Rhaunen to Detroit , which also contains extensive video material. The "transformation of the Kahn birthplace into a meeting place" is in progress.

literature

  • Michael H. Hodges: Building the Modern World: Albert Kahn in Detroit. Wayne State University Press, Detroit 2018, ISBN 978-0-8143-4035-6 .
  • Federico Bucci, Albert Kahn - Architect of Ford , Princeton Architectural Press, 2003. ISBN 978-1-56898-343-1 .

Documentaries

Web links

Commons : Albert Kahn  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Zukowsky (ed.), Chicago architecture and design, 1923-1993 , exhibition catalog of the Art Institute of Chicago , Munich, Prestel-Verlag , 1993
  2. Emine Kayim: Americanism and Albert Kahn: European Descents of Kahn's Industrial Architecture
  3. Albert Kahn, USA
  4. ^ Albert Kahn on the 75th anniversary of his death
  5. ^ Albert Kahn's legacy lives on in Detroit architecture
  6. Rhaunener personalities: Albert Kahn
  7. ^ Traveling exhibition 150 Years - Architect Albert Kahn. From Rhaunen to Detroit
  8. ALBERT KAHN architect of the modern age ; a trailer is available on youtube: ALBERT KAHN Architect of Modernism / DVD trailer