Albert Kahn Inc.

Architecture, Labor, and Industry, 1905-1961

Claire Zimmerman

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English

MIT Press
12 August 2025

Architecture

A study of Albert Kahn Incorporated-the architecture firm closely associated with the Ford Motor Company and other auto companies-that explores capitalism and political economy through the built environment of industry and culture.

A study of Albert Kahn Incorporated-the architecture firm closely associated with the Ford Motor Company and other auto companies-that explores capitalism and political economy through the built environment of industry and culture.

In Albert Kahn Inc. Claire Zimmerman provides a history of second-wave industrialization associated with the growth and development of the United States auto industry and its global footprint. A forensic analysis of the ""architects of Ford,"" the book theorizes how building and capitalism intersected in the case of twentieth-century industrial buildings, but also in other kinds of architecture and in the built environment writ large. Generally a marginal subject in histories of architecture, industrialism here exposes the expansionist modern project in Western architecture and culture, which was based on natural resource extraction and labor exploitation. With more than 140 full-color illustrations, the book combines an analysis of industrial architecture with compelling photographic evidence drawn from assorted archives.

Zimmerman offers a political economy of architecture; reconceptualizes the design process within a high-volume firm in dialogue with fast-paced industrial capitalism; tracks the feedback loops that industrialization introduced into architecture; and maps the unequal effects of these industrial environments on the workers who labored within them. Ultimately, Zimmerman shows how the coalition of US private capital and state power built industrial installations as imperialist projects, and how its practices survive to the present day.

By: Claire Zimmerman
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 178mm, Width: 114mm,
Weight: 567g
ISBN: 9780262049115
ISBN 10: 0262049112
Pages: 464
Publication Date: 12 August 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Claire Zimmerman is Associate Professor and Director of the PhD Program in Architecture at The Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at The University of Toronto.