Cranbrook | |
.jpg) Cranbrook Art Museum | |
| Location | 39221 Woodward Avenue Bloomfield Hills, Michigan |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 42°34′3.4″N83°14′36.9″W / 42.567611°N 83.243583°W /42.567611; -83.243583 |
| Built | 1926–99 |
| Architect | Eliel Saarinen |
| Architectural style | 20th Century American |
| NRHP reference No. | 73000954 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | March 7, 1973[1] |
| Designated NHLD | June 29, 1989[2] |
TheCranbrook Educational Community is an education, research, and public museum complex inBloomfield Hills, Michigan. ThisNational Historic Landmark was founded in the early 20th century by newspaper mogulGeorge Gough Booth with his wife,Ellen Scripps Booth. It consists ofCranbrook Schools,Cranbrook Academy of Art,Cranbrook Art Museum,Cranbrook Institute of Science, andCranbrook House and Gardens. The founders also built Christ Church Cranbrook as a focal point in order to serve the educational complex. However, the church is a separate entity under theEpiscopal Diocese of Michigan.[3] The sprawling 319-acre (1,290,000 m2) campus began as a 174-acre (700,000 m2) farm, purchased in 1904. The organization takes its name fromCranbrook, England, the birthplace of the founder's father.
Cranbrook is renowned for its architecture in theArts and Crafts andArt Deco styles. The chief architect wasEliel Saarinen whileAlbert Kahn was responsible for the design of Cranbrook House. SculptorsCarl Milles andMarshall Fredericks also spent many years in residence at Cranbrook.
In 2024 Cranbrook Educational Community was awarded 3 Michelin Stars in the Michelin Green Guide, on par with institutions such as the Detroit Institute of Art and the Louvre.[4]
 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Cranbrook Educational Community" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(May 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Cranbrook Schools comprise a co-educational day and boarding college preparatory "upper" school, a middle school, and Brookside Lower School.[5]
In 1922, the Bloomfield Hills School was the first school to open on the Cranbrook grounds. Founded by George Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth, the Bloomfield Hills School was intended as thecommunity school for local area children. The Bloomfield Hills School ultimately evolved into Brookside School. Following completion of the Bloomfield Hills School, The Booths looked forward to building Cranbrook School for Boys, an all-boys College-Preparatory school at which students from theDetroit area and abroad would come to reside. Booth wanted the Cranbrook School to possess an architecture reminiscent of the finest British boarding schools; he hired Finnish architectEliel Saarinen 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 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 1960s, Cranbrook School for Boys also constructed a state-of-the-art Science Building named the Gordon Science Center.
Realizing that young women would also need a place of their own to learn, Ellen Scripps Booth, Booth's wife, pressured Booth into building a school for girls. Scripps Booth supervised the project, which she named the Kingswood School Cranbrook. Unlike her husband, Scripps Booth encouraged Eliel 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 Cranbrook was contained within one building that included all necessary features, including dormitories, a dining hall, an auditorium, classrooms, a bowling alley, a ballroom, and lounges and common areas. The education at Kingswood School Cranbrook was initially viewed as a "finishing school", though that changed over time.
In 1986, the Cranbrook School for Boys and Kingswood School Cranbrook entered a joint agreement, renaming the new institution the Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School.
The Cranbrook Academy of Art, agraduate school forarchitecture,art, anddesign, was founded by George Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth in 1932. In 1984,The New York Times wrote 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."[6]
The buildings were designed and the school first headed byEliel Saarinen, who integrated design practices and theories from theArts and Crafts movement through theinternational style. The school continues to be known for itsapprenticeship method of teaching, in which a small group of students—usually only 10 to 16 per class, or 150 students in total for the ten departments—study under a singleartist-in-residence for the duration of their curriculum. There are no traditional courses; all learning is self-directed under the guidance and supervision of the respective artist-in-residence.[7]
| This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(December 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
The school currently confers two degrees:Master of Fine Arts andMaster of Architecture. The Master of Architecture degree is a post-professional degree and is not accredited by theNational Architectural Accrediting Board. Cranbrook Art Academy currently has 11 departments — 2D Design, 3D Design, 4D Design, Architecture, Ceramics, Fiber, Metalsmithing, Painting, Photography, Print Media and Sculpture.[8] The latest department (4D Design) began taking students in the fall of 2019, under the leadership of Carla Diana, a Cranbrook Art Academy alumna.[9] In 2022, Paul Sacaridiz was appointed the Director of the Cranbrook Academy of Art.[10]
The Cranbrook Art Museum is a museum ofcontemporary art with a permanent collection, including works byCharles and Ray Eames,Harry Bertoia,Maija Grotell,Carl Milles,Robert Motherwell,Andy Warhol, andRoy Lichtenstein.[11] Completed in 1942 under the direction of architect Eliel Saarinen, the museum is housed in the same building as the Cranbrook Academy of Art.
The museum also offers tours of Saarinen House, which has undergone painstaking restoration beginning in 1977.[12] The remaining areas of the house were completed between 1988 and 1994.[13] The museum is accredited by theAmerican Alliance of Museums.
Sculptor Carl Milles' numerous works in Metro Detroit include those at Cranbrook Educational Community, such asMermaids & Tritons Fountain (1930),Sven Hedin on a Camel (1932),Jonah and the Whale Fountain (1932),Orpheus Fountain (1936), andSpirit of Transportation (1952), currently inCobo Center.[14]
In 2009, the museum closed for renovation and expansion, reopening in November 2011. The project restored aspects of the original building designed by Saarinen, made necessary structural repairs, replaced windows, and upgraded mechanical systems. The renovated museum features year-round, changing exhibitions and a new Collections and Education Wing—an additional 20,000 sq ft (1,900 m2) of storage and classroom space open to visitors by guided tour. Based on an open storage plan, the new wing allows the museum's entire collection to be seen.[15]
.jpg)
The Cranbrook Institute of Science includes a permanent collection of exhibits from a variety of Disciplines including Earth, Space, and Life sciences. There are displays of temporary exhibits in museum's travelling hall that change every 3-9 months. It also features aplanetarium and a powerful 20 inchtelescope[16] through which visitors may peer on selected nights.
The museum grounds feature a life-sized statue of aStegosaurus.
From 1946 to 1970, the institute awarded theMary Soper Pope Medal for notable achievement inplant sciences.[17]
Cranbrook House and Gardens are the centerpiece of the Cranbrook Educational Community campus. The 1908 EnglishArts and Crafts-style house was designed byAlbert Kahn for Cranbrook founders George and Ellen Scripps Booth, and is roofed withLudowici tile.[18] Ten first-floor rooms can be seen on guided tours; the rooms containtapestries, hand-carvedwoodworking, and English antiques in theArts and Crafts style. The upper floors are used for the executive offices of the Cranbrook Educational Community.
Originally designed by George Booth, the 40-acre (160,000 m2) gardens include a sunken garden,formal gardens, abog garden, aherb garden, awildflower garden, aJapanese garden,sculpture, fountains, specimen trees, and a lake.
Leonard Bernstein recalled composing portions of his Symphony No. 2,The Age of Anxiety, on the Cranbrook HouseSteinway concert grand piano while residing there in April 1946.[19][20] Bernstein had come to Detroit at the request of Zoltan Sepeshy to conduct theDetroit Symphony Orchestra atMusic Hall. While visiting, he requested studio space where he could compose, and Sepeshy had the piano moved from Cranbrook House into St. Dunstan's Playhouse.[21]
The house and gardens are open to the public from May through October.
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, the son of Cranbrook's founders George and Ellen Booth.
In the summer months, the St. Dunstan's Theatre Guild performs in the outdoorGreek Theatre adjacent to the Cranbrook House. The theater was restored in 1990–1991.[13]
Fourteen buildings making up the Cranbrook complex were added to theNational Register of Historic Places in 1973[1] and were further designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989,[2] cited as being "one of the most important groups of educational and architectural structures in America".[22]
The contributing buildings are:[22]
| Topics | .jpg) | |
|---|---|---|
| Detroit | ||
| Municipalities over 80,000 | ||
| Municipalities 40,000 to 80,000 | ||
| Cultural enclaves | ||
| Satellite cities | ||
| Counties in MSA | ||
| Counties in CSA | ||
Historic homes inmetropolitan Detroit | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City |
|  | |||
| Suburban |
| ||||
| Canton Township MPS |
| ||||
| Neighborhood Historic Districts |
| ||||
See also:Architecture of metropolitan Detroit | |||||
| Historic districts |
|  |
|---|---|---|
| Historic properties |
| |
| National Historic Landmarks | ||
Religious landmarks inmetropolitanDetroit | ||
|---|---|---|
This includes houses of worship, but does not include schools. | ||
| Religious landmarks along Woodward Ave. (address #) |
|  |
| City (alsoHamtramck) |
| |
| Suburban |
| |
See also:Architecture of metropolitan Detroit | ||
Parks inmetropolitan Detroit | ||
|---|---|---|
| Detroit city |
|  |
| Metro 600 to 1,500 acres (243 to 607 ha) | ||
| 1,500 to 5,000 acres (607 to 2,023 ha) | ||
| over 5,000 acres (2,023 ha) | ||
| Waterways | ||
| Major beaches | ||
| Trails 5 to 36 miles (8 to 58 km) | ||
| Zoological and botanical | ||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
