2008 Graduate Degree Exhibition of Cranbrook Academy of Art
April 19-May 9
Members’ Preview: Friday, April 18, 6-8 pm
All galleries of Cranbrook Art Museum
Each April, as part of the requirements for earning either a Master of Fine Arts or Master of Architecture degree, the second-year students of the Academy present their thesis work in the annual Graduate Degree Exhibition. The Academy’s prestigious two-year Master’s Degree Program includes approximately 150 students working with ten Artists-in-Residence, each of whom heads one of the Academy’s ten departments: Architecture, Ceramics, 2D Design, 3D Design, Fiber, Metalsmithing, Painting, Photography, Print Media, and Sculpture.
William Massie: An American House 08
May 3 – October 31, 2008
Member’s Preview and Open House
Friday, May 2, 5-8 pm
The lawn of Cranbrook Art Museum
Take a tour of An American House 08, the first in a series of ten prefabricated houses designed and constructed by William E. Massie— the award-winning Architect-in-Residence and Head of the Architecture Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Massie has become well known in the design world for exploring and inventing new technologies and applying them to the construction and design of buildings. In 2002, Massie was selected as the winner of the Museum of Modern Art’s Young Architects Program Competition and his work has been shown in leading museums around the world. The plans for An American House 08 were intricately generated through a Computer Numerically Controlled machine, which can cut into solid materials with an accuracy that is within a thousandth of an inch of the architect’s drawings. The design and building of the house suggests a radical turn away from conventional architectural practice and making. It was first constructed in the architect’s Pontiac studio, then disassembled and moved to the Cranbrook campus in March of 2008 where it underwent further refinement. An American House 08 features modular construction, innovative lighting, and interior elements as well as contemporary furniture.
Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future
Through March 30, 2008
Cranbrook Art Museum presents the North American premiere of the exhibition Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future, which explores the work of one of the most prolific, unorthodox, and controversial masters of 20th-century architecture. Shaping the Future examines the architect’s wide-ranging career -- which was based in Bloomfield Hills -- from the 1930s through the early 1960s. Saarinen’s international array of buildings will be featured, as well as his path-breaking designs for furniture and his master plans for civic centers and universities.
Eero Saarinen chair designs at the exhibition
Model for the Gateway Arch
