Michigan Modern is a collaborative effort to share the state’s unique role in the Modernism movement.

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General Motors Technical Center
Eero Saarinen and Associates, Warren. National
Historic Landmark designation: 2014
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Northland Gardens Historic District
Southfield. National Register of Historic Places listed: 2020
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Alden B. Dow Home
Personal residence and studio of Michigan's Architect Laureate
Alden B. Dow, Midland. National Historic Landmark designation: 1989
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Flint Municipal Center
H. E. Beyster & Associates, Flint. National
Register of Historic Places listed: 2019
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Mount Clemens Federal Savings and Loan
William Kessler, Mount Clemens. Built: 1961.
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Plumbrooke Estates Historic District
Southfield. National Register of Historic Places listed: 2019
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Lafayette Park
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Detroit. National
Historic Landmark designated: 2015
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Flint Modernism Survey
Residence identified as part of the Modernism
in Flint Survey, undertaken in 2018-2019.
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“Our architecture is too humble. It should be prouder, more aggressive, much richer and larger than we see today.”

– Eero Saarinen

Modernism: Roots in Michigan

Michigan architects Eero Saarinen and Minoru Yamasaki designed buildings that defined an era. Michigan’s industry, prosperity, and educational institutions combined to create a synergy that produced some of the world’s best design talent.

This is the story of Michigan’s outstanding contributions to Modern design.

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Featured Building

Church of Saint Mary

The curved walls and sweeping cone-shaped roofs of the Church of Saint Mary appear almost foreign in the mixed residential and commercial neighborhood just north of Alma’s main commercial corridor. The sanctuary, under the central spire, seats approximately seven hundred worshippers. The architect selected to design this new place of worship was William Wesley Peters of Taliesin Associated Architects of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. The first mass was celebrated in the new church in August 1969.

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Michigan State Historic Preservation Office, photo by Steve Vorderman.
Michigan State Historic Preservation Office, photo by Rob Yallop.
Church of Saint Mary. Alma

Available at your local book store and online.

Michigan Modern in Print

“The book demonstrates how Michigan’s industries, educational institutions, and businesses employed the most innovative architects and designers of the day, who in turn lured the best and brightest to come and work with them. In this way, Modernism and Michigan were inextricably tied.” — Architectural Record

The Great Lakes State has always been known for its contributions to twentieth-century manufacturing, but it’s only beginning to receive wide attention for its contributions to Modern design and architecture.