Cranbrook Architecture: A Legacy of Latitude

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Guest-edited by Gretchen Wilkins The renowned Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, Michigan, has been described as the epicentre of American Modernism. When it opened in 1932 it combined a stunning Eliel Saarinen-designed campus with a radically open educational philosophy to attract and produce some of the most influential artists, designers and architects in US history, including Charles and Ray Eames, Fumihiko Maki, Florence Knoll and Edmund Bacon. Often compared to other experimental schools such as the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College and Taliesin, Cranbrook’s sustained purpose has been advancing a wide, interdisciplinary latitude and self-directed design research to expand and diversify its approaches to architectural practice. There is a deep and persistent idea that open and experimental acts of making should define pedagogy, and by extension that education should shape practice, not the other way around. Cranbrook’s rigorous defiance of dogma and loose grip on the disciplines enables an educational model that combines the practices of art, design, making and urbanism. In this issue, alumni, faculty and scholars reflect on Cranbrook’s model in light of contemporary and challenging questions in architectural education, practice and the profession. Contributors: Kevin Adkisson, Emily Baker, Peggy Deamer, Pia Ednie-Brown, Ronit Eisenbach, Dan Hoffman, Yu-Chih Hsiao, Peter Lynch, Bill Massie, Hani Rashid, Jesse Reiser, Lois Weinthal, and Tod Williams. Featured architects: Asymptote Architecture, Building Culture PLA, Reiser+Umemoto (RUR), Studio Libeskind, and Tod Williams Billie Tsien. Cover Title Page Copyright Page Contents About the Guest-Editor Introduction: Hive of Education Reflections on a Model of Architectural Education Building a Campus for Self-education Architecture for Education Navigating Latitude Cultures of Work Notes Evolution Over Revolution: Eliel Saarinen as Architect and Educator Creating the Cranbrook Institutions First Cranbrook Buildings Adapting Modern Sources Saarinen as Educator A Monumental Final Building Saarinen’s Legacy Notes Provoking the Outliers: Trajectories for the Near Future Drawn from the Enigmatic Past Research at the Periphery Speculating on Ideation Shapeshifting Practice Note ‘The Unmeasurable’: Lessons from Cranbrook The Oval The Observatory The Water The Natatorium Nurturing the Creative Spirit Schooling Fishy Knowledge A Living Pedagogical Ecology Cranbrook’s Imaginative Radicality Future Freshness Notes Postgraduate Architectural Education In Situ Cranbrook’s Proto Context Studio Culture / Practice Experimentation as Education Unprompted: Open-ended Investigations in the Choreography of Construction Questions to Build On Elegant Interconnection Easy and Free Preserving Ambiguity Notes Building A Dream: Fertile Ground for Social Good WALKING INTO THE DREAM THE CRANBROOK DREAMERS MAKING MY OWN DREAMLAND Notes Unbuilding and the Recovery of Craft in Architecture: Cranbrook Department of Architecture 1986–1996 The Critical Environment Beginning Work Design-Build: The Cranbrook Architecture Office Responsive Tectonics Reflection Notes An Architecture of Marks: Reading Histories and Writing Futures Opening Spaces of Representation Opening Spaces of Enquiry Opening Spaces of Rehearsal Marked by the Cranbrook Architecture Studio Notes Methods of Inspiration: A Pedagogical Approach Based on Singularity Saarinen’s Legacy The Role of Inspiration in the Design Process Introductory Problems Seminars, Guest Lectures and Symposia Contexts and Collaborators Within Detroit Notes The Interior Within Hand’s Reach: Tactile Proximity Pinching the Interior Casting Hollows and Solids Drawn to the Interior Notes Arrows: The Long Lines of In˜ uence in Architecture GEMEINSCHAFT THE EXPLORATORY ETHOS THE SECRET REASON OF UNREASON Notes Forming Action: The Subject in the Object BArch and the Concept PhD and the Subject Teaching and Production/Consumption The Profession and Activism Form and the Architecture Lobby Notes The Agency of Making: An Anatomy of Practice-based Pedagogy Following the Work Exhibitions and Workshops Creative Harvest Making in Detroit Notes From Another Perspective: Adept and Apprentices Ben Nicholson at Cranbrook Halcyon Days The Sorcerer’s Apprentice(s) The Afterlife Notes Contributors What is Architectural Design? ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN FORTHCOMING AD TITLES EULA