Albert Kahn's Daylight

Author Chris Meister brings a fresh perspective to the internationally renowned Detroit architect Albert Kahn. Understanding his design and production of iconic architecture in Detroit--like the Belle Isle Aquarium & Horticultural Building as well as the Fisher Building--alongside less-heralded projects, readers come to appreciate how Kahn's ingenuity and broad networks cultivated the spread of his influence through his advocacy of daylight in traditionally dark working environments. Beyond Detroit, Meister addresses the complicated global impact of Kahn's work by highlighting his pragmatic approach to architectural design and his involvement in fraught projects such as industrial plants designed for the USSR in Europe's interwar period. This authoritative biography of Kahn's dynamic career establishes him as vital to the development of architectural modernism and to twentieth-century economic and political history.