The architect Albert Kahn, born in 1869 in Rhaunen, Germany, was known as “the man who built Detroit.” Between 1902 and his death in 1942, his firm, based in the city, was responsible for some 2,000 built projects, including—famously—car factories for Packard, Ford, Hudson, Studebaker, and Chrysler. Kahn’s plants also produced much of the battle materiel for World War I and II, as Michael H. Hodges, The Detroit News’s fine-arts reporter and an amateur photographer, notes in his readable, well-documented book. Yet even though Kahn’s firm survives to this day, the founder was largely forgotten after the last war. This book is meant to give the man his due, and it’s quite a tale.
Kahn was the oldest of eight children born to poor German-Jewish parents who immigrated to Detroit in 1881, and he never finished elementary school. His father, a rabbi by training, opened a restaurant, where his mother cooked (they lived upstairs). When a fire consumed both the restaurant and the living quarters, Albert, at age 12 the only one in the family who spoke English, became the breadwinner. He got a job as a gofer in an architecture firm and, for extra money, mucked out horse stalls before work.
You have 0 complimentary articles remaining.
Unlimited access + premium benefits for as low as $1.99/month.