A Tour Through Mid-Michigan Modern

A TOUR THROUGH MID-MICHIGAN MODERN

Sunday, December 4, 2016 – 1:30 p.m.

Michigan Historical Museum, 702 W. Kalamazoo

            Learn first-hand about modernist architecture from Susan Bandes, author of Mid-Michigan Modern: From Frank Lloyd Wright to Googie, as she leads a tour of the new exhibit Minds of Modernism which is on display at the Michigan History Museum. Bandes, who teaches art history and is director of museum studies at MSU, acted as advisor/curator for the exhibit and will conduct the free curated tour. Parking is free and Bandes’s book will be available for purchase.

            In her new book, Bandes has collected photographs, art, and oral histories featuring more than 130 modernist structures that were built in East Lansing and Lansing between 1940 and 1970. Included are homes, offices, and sacred places you drive by every day, but really don’t know the story behind the building. For example, the Michigan Medical Society building on Saginaw in East Lansing is a classic example of modernism and was designed by the architect of the Twin Towers, Minoru Yamasaki. She also delves into the architects who designed the modernist buildings and looks at what might be considered mundane structures like East Lansing’s Dawn Donuts. One classic example of a home designed in the modernist vein is the soaring “airplane house” on Moores River Dr., which was designed for the aviator-entrepreneur Talbert Abrams and built to look like the shadow a plane casts while in the air.

            The Minds of Modernism exhibit includes architectural drawings, building models, and representative commercial products from noted designers, such as Eero Saarinen, that reflect the Modernist era. The exhibit was curated by the Archives of Michigan, the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office, the Michigan Historical Center, and Susan Bandes.