From the Back Cover: An invaluable handbook tracing the creative genius of Albert Kahn, one of America's most distinguished architects, The Legacy of Albert Kahn presents a chronology of designs in the areas of commercial, civic, institutional, and domestic architecture. Over 280 photographs, drawings, and floor plans illustrate the highly readable text.

The Legacy of Albert Kahn salutes the achievements of one of America's most distinguished architects. Originally the catalog for a major retrospective exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts, this volume has become an invaluable handbook in tracing the creative genius of Albert Kahn. Known principally for his development of modern industrial architecture, Kahn also made significant contributions in the areas of commercial, civic, institutional, and domestic architecture. Dividing the early and late works, each chapter is a chronological presentation of designs within a given architectural category. Black-and-white photographs and illustrations abound. Eclectic and visionary, the man whose legacy included the General Motors and Fisher Buildings, the Rouge Plant, and a considerable number of buildings on the University of Michigan's Ann Arbor campus continues to be a source of inspiration for a new generation of architects.

A photographically rich biography of protean architect Albert Kahn. Building the Modern World: Albert Kahn in Detroit by Michael H. Hodges tells the story of the German-Jewish immigrant who rose from poverty to become one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century. Kahn’s buildings not only define downtown Detroit, but his early car factories for Packard Motor and Ford revolutionized the course of industry and architecture alike. Employing archival sources unavailable to previous biographers, Building the Modern World follows Kahn from his apprenticeship at age thirteen with a prominent Detroit architecture firm to his death. With material gleaned from two significant Kahn archives—the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library and the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution—Hodges paints the most complete picture yet of Kahn’s remarkable rise. Special emphasis is devoted to his influence on architectural modernists, his relationship with Henry Ford, his intervention to save the Diego Rivera murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts (unreported until now), and his work laying down the industrial backbone for the Soviet Union in 1929–31 as consulting architect for the first Five Year Plan. Kahn’s ascent from poverty, his outsized influence on both industry and architecture, and his proximity to epochal world events make his life story a tableau of America’s rise to power. Historic photographs as well as striking contemporary shots of Kahn buildings enliven and inform the text. Anyone interested in architecture, architectural history, or the history of Detroit will relish this stunning work.

For 125 years, Albert Kahn Associates, Inc. has committed to designing and engineering innovative facilities that surpass the needs of our clients. Guided by the legacy of our founder Albert Kahn and a passion for architecture and engineering, Kahn commits to putting our clients first and delivering a remarkable product.Having designed over 45,000 projects around the world, Kahn's expertise starts with architecture, engineering, interior design, program management, and master planning, and spans through commissioning, business and management needs, strategic facilities planning, value and sustainability analysis.

Albert Kahn is probably the most important industrial architect of the 20th century. With his factory for the Ford T models, designed for mass production, he found himself at the beginning of modern industrial architecture. His industrial buildings inspired the architects of European Modernism. They were the examples by which the structural rationality of Kahn's industrial developments became the guiding principle for the New Building movement up until today. The unrivalled monograph with its numerous photographs, plan layouts, site plans, and virtual 3D models comprehensively documents the buildings of Albert Kahn, which he was able to construct in a very short time due to his system-based working method - in the USA but also in the Soviet Union, Brazil, Sweden, France, China, Japan, and Australia.