Detroit Architectural Gifts
Gifts of Architecture represent a distinct avenue of architectural history that can be seen throughout the world.
The dynamics of architectural gift-giving can be seen in the development enacted through colonialization, the implementation of welfare housing, constructions of Cold-War diplomacy, Post-Industrial urbanization, and global philanthrocapitalism.
The core focus of this catalog is to outline and assess significant Gifts of Architecture throughout the Detroit Metropolitan Area:
Buildings, Structures, and Sites that were commissioned through Philanthropic Development
that irrevocably impacted the surrounding residents and their communities.
Belle Isle Park
Cranbrook Academy of Art is part of the 319-acre Cranbrook Educational Community, founded by George Gough Booth and his wife Ellen Scripps Booth, Detroit newspaper proprietors and philanthropists, who hired Eliel Saarinen to design the idyllic community. Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen was hired to help with the master plan and design of the campus.
The Cranbrook School, the first building constructed in the United States by renowned Finnish Architect Eliel Saarinen, was designed to be the American parallel to the Bauhaus Movement as a school of craftwork, art, and design.
A National Historic Landmark, Cranbrook School was founded by newspaper magnates George Gough and Ellen Scripps Booth.
Today, Cranbrook School is just one of the six educational entities within the 319-acre Educational Community, and stands as a paradigm of the Gift of Architecture.
Henry Ford Hospital, located on West Grand Boulevard in the City of Detroit. Opening its doors to the public in 1915, it was the first closed hosptial in the United States.
