Cranbrook Educational Community
Encyclopedia
The Cranbrook Educational Community, a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...

, in the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 state of Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

 was founded in the early 20th century by newspaper mogul George Gough Booth
George Gough Booth
George Gough Booth was the publisher of the privately held Evening News Association, a co-founder of Booth Newspapers, and a noted philanthropist.-Publishing career:...

. Cranbrook campus is in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills consisting of Cranbrook Schools
Cranbrook Schools
Cranbrook Schools is a private, PK–12 school located on a campus in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The schools comprise a co-educational elementary school, a middle school with separate schools for boys and girls, and a co-educational high school with boarding facilities...

, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, Cranbrook Institute of Science and Cranbrook House and Gardens. The founders built Christ Church Cranbrook as a focal point in order to serve the educational complex, though the church is a separate entity under the Episcopalian Diocese
Episcopal Church (United States)
The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...

 of Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

. The sprawling, 319 acre (129 hectare) campus began as a 174 acre (70 ha) farm, purchased in 1904. The organization takes its name from Cranbrook, England
Cranbrook, Kent
Cranbrook is a small town in Kent in South East England which was granted a charter in 1290 by Archbishop Peckham, allowing it to hold a market in the High Street. Located on the Maidstone to Hastings road, it is five miles north of Hawkhurst. The smaller settlements of Swattenden, Colliers...

, the birthplace of the founder's father.

Cranbrook is renowned for its architecture in the Arts and Crafts Movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...

 style. The chief architects were Albert Kahn and Eliel Saarinen
Eliel Saarinen
Gottlieb Eliel Saarinen was a Finnish architect who became famous for his art nouveau buildings in the early years of the 20th century....

. Renowned sculptors Carl Milles
Carl Milles
Carl Milles was a Swedish sculptor, best known for his fountains. He was married to artist Olga Milles and brother to Ruth Milles and half brother to the architect Evert Milles...

 and Marshall Fredericks
Marshall Fredericks
Marshall Maynard Fredericks was an American sculptor.-Biography:Fredericks was born of Scandinavian heritage in Rock Island, Illinois on January 31, 1908. His family moved to Florida for a short time and then settled in Cleveland, Ohio, where he grew up...

 also spent many years in residence at Cranbrook.

Schools at Cranbrook

Cranbrook Schools today comprise a co-educational day and boarding college preparatory "upper" school; a middle school, and Brookside Lower School.

The first school to open on the Cranbrook grounds was the Bloomfield Hills School in 1915. Founded by George Booth, the Bloomfield Hills School was intended as the community school for local area children (of which there were then very few). The Bloomfield Hills School ultimately evolved into Brookside School. Following completion of the Bloomfield Hills School, Booth looked forward to building the Cranbrook School for Boys, an all boys College-Preparatory school which students from the Detroit area and abroad would come to reside. Booth wanted the Cranbrook School to possess an architecture reminiscent of the finest British Boarding Schools, and retained world-renowned Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen
Eliel Saarinen
Gottlieb Eliel Saarinen was a Finnish architect who became famous for his art nouveau buildings in the early years of the 20th century....

 to design the campus. Cranbrook's initial phase of building was completed in 1928.
Over the years the Cranbrook School for Boys campus grew to include house Stevens Hall, Page Hall, and Coulter Hall. While primarily functioning as only residential spaces, Page Hall featured a smoking lounge as well as a shooting range. Lerchen Gymnasium, Keppel Gymnasium, and Thompson oval were also constructed on the campus. In the 1970s, Cranbrook School for Boys also constructed a state-of-the-art Science Building named Gordon Science.

Realizing that young women would also need a place of their own to learn, Booth's wife Ellen Scripps Booth pressured Booth into building a school for girls. Mr. Booth decided to let Ellen supervise the project herself which she named the Kingswood School for Girls. Unlike her husband, Ellen encouraged Saarinen to come up with a unique interior design for the campus completely on his own. Instead of the several buildings that housed the Cranbrook School for Boys, the Kingswood School for Girls was contained within one building which included all necessary features. It housed dormitories, a dining hall, auditorium, classrooms, bowling alley, lounge/common areas, and a ballroom. The education at Kingswood School for Girls was primarily viewed initially as a "finishing school" although that would change over time.

In 1986, the Cranbrook School for Boys and Kingswood School for Girls entered a joint agreement renaming the new institution the Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School.

Cranbrook Academy of Art

The Cranbrook Academy of Art, one of the nation's leading graduate school
Graduate school
A graduate school is a school that awards advanced academic degrees with the general requirement that students must have earned a previous undergraduate degree...

s of architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

, art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

 and design
Design
Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...

, was founded by the Booths in 1932. By 1984, the New York Times would say that "the effect of Cranbrook and its graduates and faculty on the physical environment of this country has been profound ... Cranbrook, surely more than any other institution, has a right to think of itself as synonymous with contemporary American design."

The buildings were designed and the school first headed by Eliel Saarinen, who integrated design practices and theories from the arts and crafts movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...

 through the international style
International style (architecture)
The International style is a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modern architecture. The term originated from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style...

. The school continues to be known for its apprenticeship
Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...

 method of teaching, in which a small group of students, usually only 10 to 16 per class (150 students for the total of ten departments), study under a single artist-in-residence for the duration of their curriculum. The graduate program is unusual because there are no "courses": all learning is self-directed under the guidance and supervision of the respective artist-in-residence.

Beginning in 1983, a major exhibition of works by Cranbrook's faculty and graduates, entitled "Design in America: The Cranbrook Vision 1925–1950", toured major museums in the United States and Europe. The Detroit Institute of Arts
Detroit Institute of Arts
The Detroit Institute of Arts is a renowned art museum in the city of Detroit. In 2003, the DIA ranked as the second largest municipally owned museum in the United States, with an art collection valued at more than one billion dollars...

 and Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

 co-authored a book detailing the works in the exhibit.

Degrees and rankings

Cranbrook's method of teaching has proven beneficial for the school, as many of its graduate programs are considered among the best in the country by both US News and World Report and the journal DesignIntelligence, which ranks programs in its annual edition of "America's Best Architecture & Design Schools". The school currently confers the following degrees, with 2009 US News national rankings in italics:
  • Master of Architecture
    Master of Architecture
    The Master of Architecture is a professional degree in architecture, qualifying the graduate to move through the various stages of professional accreditation that result in receiving a license.-Overview:...

    . (Post-professional degree) the Master of Architecture degree is not accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board
    National Architectural Accrediting Board
    The National Architectural Accrediting Board is the sole authority for accredited US professional degree programs for architecture in the United States, developing standards and procedures to verify that each accredited program meets standards for the appropriate education of architects...

  • Master of Fine Arts
    Master of Fine Arts
    A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...

    . Overall MFA program ranked 4th.

Degrees are conferred in the following areas:
    • 2-D Design (also known as graphic design
      Graphic design
      Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

      ), 2nd
    • 3-D Design (also known as industrial design
      Industrial design
      Industrial design is the use of a combination of applied art and applied science to improve the aesthetics, ergonomics, and usability of a product, but it may also be used to improve the product's marketability and production...

      ), 7th (2011)
    • Ceramics, 2nd
    • Fiber 1st (2011)
    • Metalsmithing 6th (2011)
    • Painting, 10th
    • Photography, 10th
    • Print Media, 7th
    • Sculpture, 5th

Notable alumni and faculty

Famous alumni of the Art Academy include Marc Awodey
Marc Awodey
Marc Awodey is an American contemporary artist and poet. His poetry collections include "Telegrams from the Psych Ward" , "New York; A Haibun Journey" . and "Senryu and Nudes" from Kasini House Books. He's also author of the collection of essays "Art and Machine: 95 theses" discussing his...

, Ed Bacon, Harry Bertoia
Harry Bertoia
Harry Bertoia , was an Italian-born artist, sculptor, and modern furniture designer....

, Peter Bohlin
Peter Bohlin
Peter Q. Bohlin is an American architect and the winner of the 2010 Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects...

, Chunghi Choo
Chunghi Choo
Chunghi Choo is a jewelry designer and metalsmith who was born in Incheon, Korea in 1938. She received a BFA degree from Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea, where she majored in Oriental painting...

, Richard DeVore
Richard DeVore
Richard DeVore was an American ceramicist that was born in Toledo, Ohio in 1933. He earned a B.Ed. degree with an art major from the University of Toledo in 1955, and received an M.F.A. from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1957. In 1966 DeVore became head of the ceramics department at Cranbrook...

, Niels Diffrient
Niels Diffrient
Niels Diffrient is an American industrial designer. Diffrient focuses mainly on ergonomic seating, and his most recent and well known designs are the Freedom and Liberty chairs, manufactured by Humanscale.- Biography :...

, Charles Eames, Ray Eames, Ed Fella
Ed Fella
Ed Fella is an artist, educator and graphic designer whose work has had an important influence on contemporary typography. Ed worked as a commerical artist designing...

, Paul Granlund
Paul Granlund
Paul T. Granlund was an American sculptor. His creative career spanned more than 50 years and more than 650 different works. Most of his work is figurative and made from bronze...

, Leza McVey
Leza McVey
Leza Marie McVey , sometimes known as Sullivan, was an American studio potter.In 1932, she married the sculptor William Mozart McVey, also an artist. The couple lived and worked in many locations in Texas from 1935 to 1947.-Study:...

, Frederic James
Frederic James
Frederic James was an American painter who specialized in watercolors. He was associated with the Regionalist art movement.-Early life:...

, Jeffery Keedy
Jeffery Keedy
Jeffery Keedy is an American graphic designer, type designer, writer and educator.Keedy has been teaching design at the California Institute of the Arts since 1985. Keedy was also a frequent contributor to Emigre magazine throughout the twenty years of its publication...

, Florence Knoll
Florence Knoll
Florence Knoll Bassett is an American architect and furniture designer who studied under Mies van der Rohe and Eliel Saarinen. She was born in Saginaw, Michigan as Florence Schust and is known in familiar circles simply as "Shu"...

 (did not graduate), Walter Hamady
Walter Hamady
Walter Hamady or, in full, Walter Samuel Haatoum Hamady, is an American artist, book designer, papermaker, poet and teacher. He is especially known for his innovative efforts in letterpress printing, bookbinding, and papermaking...

, Duane Hanson
Duane Hanson
Duane Hanson was an American artist based in South Florida but born in Minnesota, a sculptor known for his lifecast realistic works of people, cast in various materials, including polyester resin, fibreglass, Bondo and bronze...

, Jack Lenor Larsen
Jack Lenor Larsen
Jack Lenor Larsen is a textile designer, author and collector and promoter of traditional and contemporary craftsmanship in all its forms.-Early life and education:...

, P. Scott Makela
P. Scott Makela
P. Scott Makela was a graphic designer, multimedia designer and type designer.Among other work, he was especially noted for the design of Dead History, a postmodern typeface that combined features of a rounded sans serif typeface and a crisp neo-classical serif typeface...

 and Laurie Haycock Makela, Fumihiko Maki
Fumihiko Maki
is a Japanese architect and currently teaching at Keio University SFC.- Biography :After studying at the University of Tokyo he moved to the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and then to Harvard Graduate School of Design. In 1956, he took a post as assistant professor of...

, Fred Mitchell
Fred Mitchell (artist)
Fred Mitchell belonged to the New York School Abstract Expressionist artists whose influence and artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized around the world...

, Gyo Obata
Gyo Obata
Gyo Obata is a significant American architect, the son of renowned painter Chiura Obata and his wife, Haruko Obata, a floral designer. In 1955, he co-founded global architectural firm HOK . He lives in St. Louis, Missouri and still works in HOK's St. Louis office...

, Ralph Rapson
Ralph Rapson
Ralph Rapson was the head of architecture at the University of Minnesota for many years...

, Bernard Rosenthal
Bernard Rosenthal
Bernard J. Rosenthal , also known as Tony Rosenthal, was an American abstract sculptor. He was the creator of the outdoor cube, Alamo that: “established him as a master of monumental public sculpture, and something of a standard bearer of the contemporary structurist esthetic.” He stated: ...

, Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen was a Finnish American architect and industrial designer of the 20th century famous for varying his style according to the demands of the project: simple, sweeping, arching structural curves or machine-like rationalism.-Biography:Eero Saarinen shared the same birthday as his father,...

, Joseph Allen Stein
Joseph Allen Stein
Joseph Stein, was an American architect. An a major figure in the establishment of a regional modern architecture in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1940s and 1950s during the early days of the environmental design movement, he is noted for designing several important buildings in India, most...

, Toshiko Takaezu
Toshiko Takaezu
Toshiko Takaezu was an American ceramic artist.She was born to Japanese immigrant parents in Pepeekeo, Hawaii, in 1922. She studied at the Honolulu Academy of Arts and at the University of Hawaii under Claude Horan from 1948-1951...

, Lycia Trouton
Lycia Trouton
Dr Lycia Danielle Trouton is a Sculptor / Installation Artist / Writer / Educator / Art theorist / Presenter based in Sydney and Belfast. A site-conscious sculptor who uses the 'art of textiles' and memory in her artwork....

, Harry Weese
Harry Weese
Harry Mohr Weese was an American architect, born in Evanston, Illinois in the Chicago suburbs, who had an important role in 20th century modernism and historic preservation...

 (City Planning fellowship, 1938–39), Lorraine Wild
Lorraine Wild
-Biography:Lorraine Wild was born in Ontario, Canada, but has lived in America for a greater part of her life. She is a world-famous graphic designer, published writer, art historian, and art instructor of design. In 1973, she entered the Cranbrook Academy of Art program which was, at the time,...

, Anne Wilson
Anne Wilson (artist)
Anne Wilson is a Chicago-based visual artist. Wilson creates sculpture, drawings, Internet projects, photography, performance, and DVD stop motion animations employing table linens, bed sheets, human hair, lace, thread and wire. Her work extends the traditional processes of Fiber art to other media...

, and Daniel Libeskind
Daniel Libeskind
Daniel Libeskind, is an American architect, artist, and set designer of Polish-Jewish descent. Libeskind founded Studio Daniel Libeskind in 1989 with his wife, Nina, and is its principal design architect...

 (Architect-in-Residence, Department of Architecture 1978–1985).

In 1932, renowned sculptor Marshall Fredericks
Marshall Fredericks
Marshall Maynard Fredericks was an American sculptor.-Biography:Fredericks was born of Scandinavian heritage in Rock Island, Illinois on January 31, 1908. His family moved to Florida for a short time and then settled in Cleveland, Ohio, where he grew up...

 was invited by Milles to join the staffs of the academy and schools, teaching there until he enlisted in the armed forces in 1942. In 1987, Keith Haring
Keith Haring
Keith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.-Early life:...

 served as artist-in-residence.

Cranbrook Art Museum

Cranbrook Art Museum is a museum of contemporary art with a permanent collection including works by Charles and Ray Eames, Harry Bertoia
Harry Bertoia
Harry Bertoia , was an Italian-born artist, sculptor, and modern furniture designer....

, Maija Grotell
Maija Grotell
Maija Grotell was a ceramist and teacher sometimes described today as the “mother of American ceramics”. Grotell was born in Helsinki, Finland, and emigrated to New York in 1927. After arriving in New York she studied at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University...

 and Carl Milles
Carl Milles
Carl Milles was a Swedish sculptor, best known for his fountains. He was married to artist Olga Milles and brother to Ruth Milles and half brother to the architect Evert Milles...

, as well as Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell American painter, printmaker and editor. He was one of the youngest of the New York School , which also included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Philip Guston....

, Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

 and Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein was a prominent American pop artist. During the 1960s his paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City and along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and others he became a leading figure in the new art movement...

. Completed in 1942 under the direction of world renowned architect Eliel Saarinen
Eliel Saarinen
Gottlieb Eliel Saarinen was a Finnish architect who became famous for his art nouveau buildings in the early years of the 20th century....

, the museum is housed in the same building as the Cranbrook Academy of Art. The Museum closed in 2009 for a two-year renovation and expansion. The museum also offers tours of Saarninen House which was partially restored in 1977. The remaining areas of the house were completed between 1988 and 1995. The museum is accredited by the American Association of Museums
American Association of Museums
The American Association of Museums is a non-profit association that has brought museums together since its founding in 1906, helping develop standards and best practices, gathering and sharing knowledge, and advocating on issues of concern to the museum community...

.

Sculptor Carl Milles
Carl Milles
Carl Milles was a Swedish sculptor, best known for his fountains. He was married to artist Olga Milles and brother to Ruth Milles and half brother to the architect Evert Milles...

' numerous works in Metro Detroit include those at Cranbrook Educational Community such as Mermaids & Tritons Fountain (1930), Sven Hedin on a Camel (1932), Jonah and the Whale Fountain {1932}, Orpheus Fountain (1936), and the Spirit of Transportation (1952) currently in Cobo Center.

The newly expanded museum opened in November 2011 after two-years of construction. The project restored aspects of the original building designed by Saarinen, made needed structural repairs, replaced windows and upgraded mechanical systems. The new collections wing added 20000 sq ft (1,858.1 m²) of exhibition and storage space. The new storage area will be open to visitors and allows the museum's entire collection to be seen.

Cranbrook Institute of Science

The Cranbrook Institute of Science includes a permanent collection of scientific artifacts and also displays annual temporary exhibits. It also features a planetarium
Planetarium
A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation...

 and a powerful telescope
Telescope
A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...

 through which visitors may peer on selected nights.

The museum grounds feature a life-sized statue of a Stegosaurus
Stegosaurus
Stegosaurus is a genus of armored stegosaurid dinosaur. They lived during the Late Jurassic period , some 155 to 150 million years ago in what is now western North America. In 2006, a specimen of Stegosaurus was announced from Portugal, showing that they were present in Europe as well...

.

Cranbrook House and Gardens

Cranbrook House and Gardens are the centerpiece of the Cranbrook Educational Community campus. The 1908 English Arts and Crafts-style house was designed by Albert Kahn for Cranbrook founders George Gough Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth. Ten first-floor rooms can be seen on guided tours, and contain tapestries, hand-carved woodworking and English Arts and Crafts-style antiques. The upper floors of the house are used for the executive offices of the Cranbrook Educational Community.

The 40 acres (161,874.4 m²) gardens were originally designed by George Gough Booth, and include a sunken garden, formal gardens, bog garden, herb garden, wildflower garden, Oriental garden, sculpture, fountains, specimen trees and a lake.

Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

 composed scores for portions of the musical West Side Story
West Side Story
West Side Story is an American musical with a script by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and choreographed by Jerome Robbins...

 on the Cranbrook House Steinway concert grand piano while visiting Cranbrook in April 1946.

The house and gardens are open to the public from May through October.

St. Dunstan's Playhouse

St. Dunstan's Playhouse, while not formally a part of the Cranbrook Educational Community, is located on the Cranbrook grounds near the Cranbrook House. The Playhouse, a 206-seat theater, houses the St. Dunstan's Theatre Guild of Cranbrook. The guild was founded in 1932 by Henry Scripps Booth, son of Cranbrook's founders George and Ellen Booth.

In the summer months, the St. Dunstan's Theatre Guild performs in the outdoor Greek Theatre adjacent to the Cranbrook House. The theatre was restored in 1990-91.

See also

  • Architecture of metropolitan Detroit
    Architecture of metropolitan Detroit
    The architecture of metropolitan Detroit, Michigan continues to attract the attention of architects and preservationists alike. With one of the world's recognizable skylines, Detroit's waterfront panorama shows a variety of architectural styles. The city's historic Art Deco skyscrapers blend with...

  • List of Eye magazine issues – (No.3, Vol 1. Spring 1991)
  • Tourism in metropolitan Detroit
    Tourism in metropolitan Detroit
    Tourism in metropolitan Detroit, Michigan is a significant factor for the region's culture and for its economy, comprising nine percent of the area's two million jobs. About 15.9 million people visit Metro Detroit annually, spending an estimated $4.8 billion. Detroit is one of the largest American...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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