Albert Kahn

Architect Albert Kahn was a native German from Rhauen as the son of a rabbi, whose family immigrated to the United States in 1880. He received his professional training as an apprentice with the architectural firm of Mason and Rice in Detroit, and then became one of the most important American industrial architects of his time. He favored a modern functionalistic design. Besides his numerous buildings for the automotive industry in Detroit and Michigan (Packard, General Motors, Ford), he also built over 500 factories in the former Soviet Union from 1929-32. He also later worked in Brazil, Sweden, France, China, Japan and Australia. The company Kahn founded is still active in the 21st century and operates worldwide.

In spite of his reputation as an industry architect, he submitted two golf and country club and one swimming pool project: the Detroit Golf Club, designed in 1916 and completed in 1918, the Country Club of Detroit in Grosse Point, opened in 1923 and destroyed by fire only two years later, and the indoor swimming pool of the Detroit Athletic Club, opened in 1915. The club’s six-story building was planned after a study trip to Italy in Neo-Renaissance style.