The Beginnings
George Gough and Ellen Scripps Booth were the founders of Cranbrook; Eliel Saarinen was its architect. George Booth was born in 1864 and was a designer for an ornamental ironworks in Ontario. His marriage in 1887 to Ellen, the daughter of James Scripps, the founder of the Detroit Evening News, eventually led to them becoming millionaires and patrons of the Arts and Crafts. In 1904, George and Ellen Scripps Booth purchased farmland in rural Bloomfield Hills, twenty miles north of Detroit. The property, 175 acres, was named after the birthplace of his father in England, a village in Kent: Cranbrook. The Booths moved into their home, designed by Albert Kahn; an English manor house in appearance, resplendent with Arts and Crafts.
Gottlieb Eliel Saarinen was born in 1873 in Finland; he was educated in Helsinki. His first major work, with his partners, was the Finnish Pavilion at the 1900 World Fair. Hvittrask, his home and studio, was designed in 1902 and Helsinki Central Railway station in 1904. As a city planner, architect and designer he developed an international reputation; furthered when his entry won second place in the competition for the Tribune Tower in Chicago in 1923. Eliel, his wife Loja and two children moved there that year. In 1925 George Booth invited him to design the Cranbrook campus; Eliel Saarinen became the first president of the Academy of art in 1932.
On a personal note, I must say that to visit Helsinki is critical in gaining an understanding of Saarinen and Cranbrook. As I wandered through his home and the grounds of Hvistrakk, I began to appreciate Cranbrook even more; precedents and beginnings were apparent, particularly in the interiors. Furnishings and fabrics, decoration and details, were to be seen that would appear in his later work. The railway station is a magnificent building; its interiors restored, reminiscent of Kingswood. I realized that, in that era, the railway station was the point of arrival in a nation’s capitol; Finland was proud of its newly won independence and wanted to impress. Eliel Saarinen does that with Helsinki Central; his son Eero did the same with Dulles Airport. His design for the terminal building makes for a grand modernistic arrival at our nation’s capitol. Father and son were acclaimed architects; each distinctive and in his own time.
Recent publications on the Booth family, the Saarinens and the founding of Cranbrook include “Design in America: The Cranbrook Vision 1925-50” (1983) and “A History of Cranbrook: A life without beauty is only half lived” (1999). Another insightful history of the museum by Gregory Wittkopp is his essay in “Cranbrook Academy of Art: 100 Treasures” (2004). I will tell the rest of the story in my own words, a mixture of facts and feelings: “George and Ellen Scripps Booth were patrons of the Arts and Crafts; amongst the early buildings were an amphitheatre and a Meeting House that became a day school for young children. The Booths were religious; Christ Church Cranbrook, built in 1925, was Episcopalian and in the English Gothic style. Personally, I felt that I was back in the old country! The story goes that the church, situated out in the country, had problems getting choir boys; so Cranbrook Boys School was built?! Actually, we do know that the Booths had visited the American Academy in Rome and wanted to create a similar academy. Henry Booth was studying architecture at the University of Michigan; his father, George, asked him to design the boys’ school. Henry’s teacher was Eliel Saarinen; the great architect had left his native Finland, coming to America, the land of opportunity. Initially, he went to Chicago as his wife, Loja, dreamt that she lost her earrings and found them in the windy city! Henry introduced his teacher to his father; George asked Eliel to design a master plan for Cranbrook. Eliel Saarinen became the architect for the community; the first buildings being those for the Cranbrook School for Boys, 1925. Ellen Booth felt there should be a school for young ladies; Kingswood School for Girls was built in 1927. Jokingly, I say that the lake was created to keep the boys away from the girls?! In all this building, craftsmen from Europe were used for ornamental ironwork and decorative brickwork. In 1932, the Cranbrook Academy of Art was formally opened with Eliel Saarinen as the first President. Later, he designed the Institute of Science; started in 1936. I was always surprised that the buildings were completed in the Great Depression but the workers trusted the Booths; rightly so! Ellen Scripps Booth died in 1948 and, a year later, George Booth died. Eliel Saarinen died in his house at Cranbrook in 1950. How fortunate that these enlightened patrons had met with the visionary architect; brought together by happenstance. The dream of lost earrings; the studies of a son; the passion for the Arts and Crafts; all intersected to create Cranbrook. The relationship of Booth and Saarinen was unique; committed to the finest of art and architecture. Rarely has there been such patronage and creativity; with their deaths came the end of an era”.
