Albert Kahn Major Accomplishments

Albert Kahn was born in Rhaunen, Kingdom of Prussia (Germany) on March 21, 1869. His father was a rabbi and his mother was a teacher of visual arts and music. In 1880 the Jewish family moved to Detroit in hopes of a better life where his father became a fruit peddler. Kahn, age eleven, helped to support his family by working odd jobs. Julius Melchers, a local sculptor, saw Kahn’s artistic abilities and allowed him to attend his art school for free. In school, on of the professors discovered that Kahn was colorblind and suggested that he become an architect. Melchers helped Kahn to become an office boy at Mason & Rice, where George Mason taught Kahn how to draft. Six years later, Kahn won a scholarship to study abroad for one year in Europe.

When he returned, he formed a partnership, but began practice on his own shortly after. Albert Kahn Associates was founded in 1895 and by the1930s; he ran the largest architectural office in the world and is still currently in operation. Even though Kahn’s office employed around four hundred people, it remained a family enterprise, which was supported by his four brothers. Julius was the chief engineer and patented the Kahn Bar System; a system of reinforced concrete used on all of their projects. Another brother ran the foreign export sector, which they designed over five hundred factories in the Soviet Union and trained more than one thousand engineers. Together they all created a new style of construction.

The first factories were built during the industrial revolution because capitalists wanted to move out from small workshops and houses and into large buildings were products could be produced quickly and cheaply. Most architects of the time thought of themselves as a high priest of art, and that designing a factory was beneath their dignity. Office boys designed most of the early buildings that were poorly planned resulting in production layouts with