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Albert Kahn 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 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 architeet. 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. Major works:
Bibliography: 1. C, Hilebrand. The Architecture of
Albert Kahn, M.I.T. Press. Cambridge. Mass., 1974. |
