https://michaelabrahamson.com Michael Abrahamson Wed, 18 Feb 2026 23:34:47 +0000 https://michaelabrahamson.com en https://michaelabrahamson.com/Mirrors-in-Late-Modern-Architecture Wed, 18 Feb 2026 23:34:47 +0000 Michael Abrahamson https://michaelabrahamson.com/Mirrors-in-Late-Modern-Architecture Archithese 2.2024Mirrors in Late Modern U.S. ArchitectureJournal Article, 2024 <img width="3752" height="2466" width_o="3752" height_o="2466" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8b0a256c9527a5a2c5ec485a3c22a988f7dd9a2d3dab7f47e993f7bca3b66ba2/1_Jimmy-Carter-Inaguration-Parade-Mirror-Float_01-20-1977-copy.jpg" data-mid="245056081" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8b0a256c9527a5a2c5ec485a3c22a988f7dd9a2d3dab7f47e993f7bca3b66ba2/1_Jimmy-Carter-Inaguration-Parade-Mirror-Float_01-20-1977-copy.jpg" /> Late modern mirrored-glass architecture in the United States has often been decried as faceless, derivative, and devoid of meaning. Surveying the landscape of mirrored buildings and theorizations of mirrored architecture reveals, however, meaningful experiments and symbolic depth behind these façades. Discussing theorizations by Fredric Jameson, Arthur Drexler, Diana Agrest, and Reinhold Martin, then analyzing works by Eero Saarinen, Kevin Roche, Philip Johnson, and Gunnar Birkerts, I conclude that even if conventional curtain walls had lost their luster by the late 1970s, late modern architects were far from finished with reflective surfaces. Mirrored theme float, Jimmy Carter Inauguration Parade, Washington, D.C., 20 January, 1977. Published as frontispiece to Pamela Heyne, Today’s Architectural Mirror: Interiors, Buildings, and Solar Designs (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1982). https://michaelabrahamson.com/Effortful-Marginal-Differentiation Tue, 24 Jan 2023 21:01:07 +0000 Michael Abrahamson https://michaelabrahamson.com/Effortful-Marginal-Differentiation OASE Journal 113: Authorships ‘Effortful Marginal Differentiation’: Authorship and Ideology in the Cold War United States&nbsp; (Print-only until 2024)Peer-Reviewed Article, 2023 <img width="2457" height="2189" width_o="2457" height_o="2189" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/36aede20a19289623b14a260a13f00661f78f5a2afd639c5ee4cb3d3ec9f876b/HHRichardson_PACoverJuly1965_cropped.jpg" data-mid="165887897" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/36aede20a19289623b14a260a13f00661f78f5a2afd639c5ee4cb3d3ec9f876b/HHRichardson_PACoverJuly1965_cropped.jpg" /> In this article I argue that a once-prevalent collective ethos in architectural practice reached its apotheosis during the 1950s. Transformations that were nascent in the that decade spurred a retrenchment around the individual author, at least among the small and midsize firms that still comprised the bulk of the profession at the time. As early as 1960, simmering anxieties about the aesthetic anonymity of modernism came to be linked with concerns about social conformity, resulting in a desire for distinctive authorial identities among architects, critics, and clients. When discussing authorship today, we must take account of the ideological props that bolster this still-pervasive myth of the individual author despite its increasing disingenuousness: first, that authorship in the U.S. context served as a weapon in Cold War debates concerning liberty and collectivity; and second, that it also acts as (psychological) compensation for the alienating realities of architectural employment. Portrait of 19th Century US architect Henry Hobson Richardson featured on the July 1965 cover of Progressive Architecture, illustrating dramatic change within the image of architects from visionary individualist to “pseudo-corporation man” and back again, as explored by Jan C. Rowan in his editorial that month. https://michaelabrahamson.com/Oxford-Bibliographies-Albert-Kahn Mon, 17 Jan 2022 01:00:12 +0000 Michael Abrahamson https://michaelabrahamson.com/Oxford-Bibliographies-Albert-Kahn Oxford Bibliographies on Architecture, Planning &amp; Preservation (Oxford University Press)Oxford Bibliographies: Albert Kahn&nbsp;↗ (Paywalled)Peer-Reviewed Article, 2022 <img width="2335" height="1905" width_o="2335" height_o="1905" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/57966c601431cef8a8bc79346262c6c0edeac0fab9898d28d13185658ddeca60/Albert-Moritz-Kahn_Plan-review.jpg" data-mid="130426392" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/57966c601431cef8a8bc79346262c6c0edeac0fab9898d28d13185658ddeca60/Albert-Moritz-Kahn_Plan-review.jpg" /> Though he has been marginalized in most mainstream accounts of modern architecture, Albert Kahn (b. 1869–d. 1942) is increasingly considered one of the most important and consequential US architects of the 20th century. Kahn is known primarily for the technically innovative and rigorously functional factory buildings that his still-extant firm Albert Kahn Associates, Inc. (founded 1903) designed for automotive manufacturers, including the Ford Motor Company, but his firm was also responsible for hundreds of eclectically styled buildings for other purposes in Detroit, Michigan. This bibliography surveys literature on Kahn and his firm within ten thematic categories, including texts by Kahn and his siblings, contemporaneous criticism, those dismissive of his firm‘s relevance to histories of modernism, and the recent turn in scholarship toward crediting Kahn with substantial contributions to twentieth-century architecture. Partners of Albert Kahn Associates, Detroit, 1920s. Albert Kahn Associates records, Bentley Historical Library. https://michaelabrahamson.com/A-Pyramid-of-Paperwork Thu, 06 May 2021 22:03:22 +0000 Michael Abrahamson https://michaelabrahamson.com/A-Pyramid-of-Paperwork RA. Revista de Arquitectura, n. 23 (English and Spanish)A Pyramid of Paperwork: Labors of Imagination and Interpretation in Late Twentieth Century Architectural Practice&nbsp;↗Journal Article, 2021 <img width="2537" height="1878" width_o="2537" height_o="1878" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/91986c5ec1b626a44e05695ac6bd8865ab60c9d0c5e094cb01697c10933d584e/BL000573_inverted.jpg" data-mid="108858649" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/91986c5ec1b626a44e05695ac6bd8865ab60c9d0c5e094cb01697c10933d584e/BL000573_inverted.jpg" /> A fundamental shift in employment patterns among architects&nbsp;in North America during the 1960s and 1970s impacted the ways particular kinds of tasks were either monopolized or delegated within firms. This article uses the archive of the US-based architectural firm&nbsp;Gunnar Birkerts and Associates&nbsp;to show&nbsp;evidence&nbsp;of&nbsp;a&nbsp;growing gulf between executive architects and employee architects (particularly women assigned to interiors work), as well as the persistence of&nbsp;chauvinistic&nbsp;practice ideals under&nbsp;changed circumstances. The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis building design is shown to be illustrative of the gulf between imaginative and interpretive labors. Sketch by Gunnar Birkerts and others exploring variations for the catenary structural system of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis building, ca. 1968. BL000573, Gunnar Birkerts papers, Bentley Historical Library. https://michaelabrahamson.com/Dialectic-VIII-Subverting Wed, 05 May 2021 04:08:04 +0000 Michael Abrahamson https://michaelabrahamson.com/Dialectic-VIII-Subverting University of Utah School of Architecture Dialectic VIII: Subverting—Unmaking Architecture?&nbsp;↗ Editorial Project, 2021 <img width="958" height="720" width_o="958" height_o="720" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bcd4679a571d151a894c6607f4d5cee1f6c633035e5622338796a0bbab30d37f/Buster-Keaton-One-Week_1920.jpg" data-mid="107461393" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/958/i/bcd4679a571d151a894c6607f4d5cee1f6c633035e5622338796a0bbab30d37f/Buster-Keaton-One-Week_1920.jpg" /> With issue coeditor Ole W. Fischer, I helped to develop an open call for papers addressing how and why architectural practice or design pedagogy might be in need of subverting. In this case, we take subverting to mean (to play on Audre Lorde’s famous architectural metaphor) turning the master’s house against itself. Articles selected from an open call include discussions of contemporary community-engaged teaching, ethnographic studies of tenant appropriation, progressive design projects, analysis of historical examples, as well as theoretical explorations of fundamental concepts including nature and ground. I wrote an editorial to set the stage for this diverse selection that discusses the subversive tactics of Virgil Abloh and overlooked aspects of&nbsp;Learning From Las Vegas. This project has received support from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Still from Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline’s short comedy film One Week (1920), in which a newly married couple assemble, reassemble, and spectacularly dismantle a build-it-yourself house kit. https://michaelabrahamson.com/Seeking-Other-Solidarities Sun, 26 Apr 2020 18:39:40 +0000 Michael Abrahamson https://michaelabrahamson.com/Seeking-Other-Solidarities Journal of Architectural Education, v. 74, n. 2: OtheringSeeking Other Solidarities ↗Peer-Reviewed Journal Article, October 2020 <img width="2920" height="2127" width_o="2920" height_o="2127" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c1fafb9c9d61fe140db7a8d1880b7bc3c9755ad40e9691626bdd0a4c7fa4176b/Abrahamson_Figure_5.jpg" data-mid="68553761" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c1fafb9c9d61fe140db7a8d1880b7bc3c9755ad40e9691626bdd0a4c7fa4176b/Abrahamson_Figure_5.jpg" /> This “micronarrative” is a critique of architecture’s aporia around cross-industry solidarity. Due to the posture and rhetoric of professionalism, architects have too often been unwilling and unable to form relationships of solidarity with other parties involved in the making of buildings. If we are to transform the processes of design and construction to address the urgent challenges of the present, solidarity with these “others” will be necessary. Analysis of an article discussing the construction of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis (FRBM), designed by Gunnar Birkerts and Associates, illustrates some of the tensions caused by class hierarchies and subordinations within construction, while also revealing opportunities for stronger, industry-wide bonds. Steelworkers tension one of the suspension cables supporting the FRBM office tower, April 1971. https://michaelabrahamson.com/Rocket-Science-or-Representation Thu, 05 Sep 2019 00:11:31 +0000 Michael Abrahamson https://michaelabrahamson.com/Rocket-Science-or-Representation Flying Panels: How Concrete Panels Changed the WorldRocket Science or Representation? Notes on Concrete Panel Construction in the United States&nbsp;↗Book Chapter, 2019 <img width="1889" height="1486" width_o="1889" height_o="1486" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bc9e16fb0e5a75ed43c7f8cd27637d41b1abc6ed9f676b41afb728425a7dc805/HRW-Plant-View1.jpg" data-mid="49915629" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/bc9e16fb0e5a75ed43c7f8cd27637d41b1abc6ed9f676b41afb728425a7dc805/HRW-Plant-View1.jpg" /> This text was written for an exhibition catalog on concrete panel architecture, and discusses the ideological reasons behind the comparatively small number of such buildings in the United States. I argue that the consumerist braiding of personal identity with one’s choice in housing led to a representational problem for concrete panels that was exacerbated by anti-Soviet propaganda. Calls for greater efficiency in construction did lead to the adoption of concrete panels for housing aimed at particular constituencies—the itinerant, the elderly, and the poor. I discuss one governmental attempt to encourage their use in housing construction at length: the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s program “Operation Breakthrough,” which ran from 1969 to 1974. Under this program, HUD commissioned dozens of demonstration buildings to show the potentials of innovative construction techniques like concrete panels. In the end, I conclude, panels found their most widespread use in college dormitories and in housing for the elderly. Photograph of Hyman/Rouse-Wates Panel Factory in Edmonston, Maryland, early 1970s. https://michaelabrahamson.com/Testing-the-Establishment Thu, 05 Sep 2019 00:35:10 +0000 Michael Abrahamson https://michaelabrahamson.com/Testing-the-Establishment University of Michigan&nbsp;Testing the Establishment: Authorial Signature &amp; Professional Method in the Architecture of Gunnar Birkerts Ph.D. Dissertation, 2015–2018 <img width="2825" height="2230" width_o="2825" height_o="2230" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f451316cfe044ca4027344e2881e3aa563d5eda2d47c781cafcaaa6c1dc01c68/hs18297_reduced.jpg" data-mid="49916906" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f451316cfe044ca4027344e2881e3aa563d5eda2d47c781cafcaaa6c1dc01c68/hs18297_reduced.jpg" /> Beginning with the first critical analysis of the buildings and design practice of important Detroit-based architect Gunnar Birkerts, my dissertation addresses the conventions of architectural practice and the ways in which they underwrite claims to authorship posited by firm figureheads like Birkerts. Examining archival materials related to five key projects spanning twenty years, I traced the development of Birkerts’s firm within its disciplinary, professional, and social contexts. In doing so, I foregrounded often overlooked processes and protocols, and questioned not only the hierarchies of mainstream architectural practice but also the way they are obscured and reified in architectural history. I exposed the essential role played by firm associates, the reciprocal influences between client and architect, and the function of professional standards in enabling the signature of architects like Birkerts.&nbsp; Construction photograph of Gunnar Birkerts and Associates’ Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis by Schwang Studio. https://michaelabrahamson.com/Actual-Center-of-Detroit Wed, 04 Sep 2019 23:23:01 +0000 Michael Abrahamson https://michaelabrahamson.com/Actual-Center-of-Detroit Journal of the Society of Architectural HistoriansActual Center of Detroit: Method, Management, and Decentralization in Albert Kahn’s General Motors Building&nbsp;↗Peer-Reviewed Journal Article, March 2018 <img width="2778" height="1976" width_o="2778" height_o="1976" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5c2b3654a0a664e558dc47e2ba0075c42c347fac363a1ddfc0269083087496e2/General-Motors-Building-on-Completion.jpg" data-mid="49913920" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5c2b3654a0a664e558dc47e2ba0075c42c347fac363a1ddfc0269083087496e2/General-Motors-Building-on-Completion.jpg" /> In the period between 1919 and ‘22, two events catalyzed General Motors’ nascent dominance in the automotive industry: the company built a monumental headquarters in Detroit, designed by Albert Kahn Associates and located on what was then the periphery of the city; and a restructuring of the corporation was enacted at the behest of several newly appointed executives, including Alfred P. Sloan. In this article, I explore the conjunction between these events, arguing that both manifest a struggle with immense size. To cope with the bigness of buildings, corporations, and urban environments, GM and the Kahn firm developed strategies that set the agenda for architectural practice, corporate management, and urban development for the twentieth-century United States. Together, these strategies reveal the entwined forces that influenced the design of the General Motors Building.Society of Architectural Historians Founders’ Award 2020 Photograph from Albert Kahn Associates records, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan https://michaelabrahamson.com/A-Driverless-Detroit Wed, 04 Sep 2019 23:48:58 +0000 Michael Abrahamson https://michaelabrahamson.com/A-Driverless-Detroit Take Shape, v. 2: CommuteA Driverless Detroit: Public Roads and Private Goals in the 1970s ↗Journal Article, 2018 <img width="1573" height="919" width_o="1573" height_o="919" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/589a2e93df8d1a37aae03d98a4ba3a97cbf66883631a8f51df6dce91f9b5d9d7/Birkerts_Dual-Mode-Mainline.jpg" data-mid="49914480" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/589a2e93df8d1a37aae03d98a4ba3a97cbf66883631a8f51df6dce91f9b5d9d7/Birkerts_Dual-Mode-Mainline.jpg" /> In response to a call for articles addressing the daily commute, I wrote an article that discusses two radical infrastructure projects for Detroit designed in the early 1970s by the architect Gunnar Birkerts. I offered these projects as models for the kind of visionary thinking that is increasingly necessary after decades of deferred maintenance and disinvestment has decimated transit infrastructure in some cities. They show that the infrastructure and transportation systems we have inherited are in no way inevitable—opportunities for dramatic rethinking do arise, and we must capitalize on them if we want to create more equitable and appealing urban environments. The seemingly imminent rise of autonomous vehicles offers exactly this kind of opportunity, and these projects show how radical we can and should be, particularly in chronically underserved cities like Detroit. Both Birkerts projects were in a sense “driverless.” They freed commuters from the tyranny of other drivers—by relocating them underground, or by raising commuting lines above the fray. In recent years, autonomous vehicles have captured imaginations and investment dollars, and Detroit is again an important location for technological testing. But despite the long history of driverless technology and debate about transit priorities, this testing has so far been framed both ahistorically and apolitically. The article revisited two forgotten cases, hoping to reopen possibilities long foreclosed by political “realism.” The visionary alternatives these projects offered remain potent images for radical urbanists. Scale Model of Gunnar Birkerts and Associates’ Dual Mode Transit Study for Detroit. Photograph by Balthazar Korab.