Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research

09/30/2026

Rain or shine, it’s always a beautiful day in the Cranbrook Japanese Garden.

Photo: Andrew Potter Photography

05/22/2026

New blog post alert! Click below to read more about a few happenings From the Archives.

Things have been happening in the Archives behind the scenes this past Winter. As we transition into Spring (I think?), I thought I’d share just a couple of new developments that we are all very ex…

05/12/2026

Join us for a special lecture on Japanese gardens with Dr. Kendall Brown, Professor Emeritus of Asian Art History at California State University Long Beach.

JAPANESE GARDENS FROM THE LATE GILDED AGE: CRANBROOK IN CONTEXT
🗓️ Sunday, June 7
🕔 5:00 - 6:15pm
📍 Cranbrook Art Museum deSalle Auditorium

This illustrated lecture by Dr. Brown explores the context for the Booths’ Japanese garden at Cranbrook. It traces the history of Japanese gardens on estates across the United States and concludes with some of the ways Japanese gardens can maintain their relevance and flourish.

Visit our site to learn more or register: center.cranbrook.edu/events/lectures

04/17/2026

Apply now for the inaugural Cranbrook Archives Janice and Barry King Visiting Scholars Fellowship. Designed to reimburse travel expenses for qualified on-site research visits to the Archives, beginning in July 2026. Awards range from $500 to $2,500.

Visit our website to learn more: center.cranbrook.edu.

03/20/2026

Meet the newest member of the Center Team, Associate Archivist Xavi Danto!

Xavi pursued a career in archives after receiving a BA in Visual and Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MS in Library and Information Science with an Advanced Certificate in Archives from Pratt Institute. As our Associate Archivist, they will be responsible for the sustainability and access of Cranbrook’s analog and digital archival collections.

Originally from the area, their favorite memory of visiting Cranbrook’s campus was jumping from stone to stone on Richard Nonas’ “Lucifer Landing (Real Snake in Imaginary Garden)” sculpture as a child.

Xavi Fun Fact: They have a grey tabby cat named Pearl.

02/23/2026

It’s the final week of History of American Architecture!

Tomorrow’s lecture will wrap up the Beauty Revisited series. For those that cannot attend the rescheduled date, we will have the lecture recorded to watch at your leisure.

This week’s topic? In the Eye of a Collective Beholder 🏛

Beauty is never neutral. This lecture examines how judgments of beauty intersect with class, authority, and cultural power. Who decides what is beautiful? Who benefits from those decisions? By tracing how taste has been shaped, enforced, and contested, the lecture considers beauty in architecture as a social force—capable not only of persuasion and attachment, but also exclusion and resistance.

📸: Nimitz House (1900) beneath the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge (2002-2013) with housing complex (circa 2010s) behind, Yerba Buena Island, San Francisco, California. Courtesy Beth LaBerge/KQED.

02/03/2026

🚨UPDATED: ATTENTION LECTURE ATTENDEES🚨

Today’s History of American Architecture: Beauty Revisited lecture has been cancelled. We will reschedule for a future date. Please refer to your email for updates 💌

The topic of the lecture: Beauty and the Body.

Architecture is not only seen, it is felt. Drawing inspiration from the 1966 classic by Charles W. Moore and Kent C. Bloomer, Body, Memory, and Architecture, the lecture explores beauty as an embodied experience. Approaches, thresholds, paths, and pauses all shape how architecture is remembered and understood. By examining architecture as choreography rather than image, the lecture considers how beauty is constructed through anticipation, repetition, and recall — and why some environments linger in memory long after we leave them.

Beauty will be revisited! Thank you for your understanding 🫶

01/27/2026

History of American Architecture lecture series continues!

Join the Center and Curator Kevin Adkisson for week three of the lecture series, Beauty Revisited.

Today’s topic? Ornament Is Not a Crime.

Few ideas have shaped modern architecture more forcefully than the rejection of ornament. This lecture revisits the debate crystallized by Adolf Loos’s 1908 essay Ornament and Crime, reconsidering ornament not as excess, but as a form of architectural communication. Across cultures and periods, ornament has carried memory, meaning, labor, and pleasure.

By tracing how and why ornament was marginalized in the twentieth century, the lecture asks what was lost when buildings were stripped of their expressive vocabulary—and how architects have continued to grapple with ornament’s persistence.

Missed the first two weeks? Not a problem. All registrants receive exclusive access to ALL lecture recordings.

Visit our website to register: center.cranbrook.edu🔗

📸: Detail of entrance, Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company, Louis Sullivan, Chicago, Illinois, 1899. Courtesy of Picnic at the Cathedral Blog.

01/26/2026

Every masterpiece has many hands behind it.

As we look ahead to Crafting the Cranbrook Story: House Party 2026, we’re highlighting the donors whose support makes our work possible! Thank you for laying the foundation for preservation, programming, and research.

We can’t wait to celebrate with you on February 28, 2026!

🕰️ VISIONARY
Carolynn and Aaron Frankel, Ambassador and Mrs. Yousif B. Ghafari

⚒ INNOVATOR
Viveka and Jason Peter, Bobbi and Stephen Polk, Sandy Smith and Bob Wilson

📜 STORYTELLER
Sarah and Lando Juarez, Paula Jo and Jamie Kemler, Gabrielle and Sharif Tai, Kristine and Jason Vazzano, Linzie Venegas and Jon Rimanelli, Elizabeth and Michael Willoughby

🗝️ STEWARD
Molly and Michael Beauregard, Thomas and Lois Booth, Peter Ghafari, Marla and Cyrus Karimipour, James Kelly and Mariam Noland, Barbara and Christopher Kouza, Rebecca and Jack McNaughton, Sarah and Thomas Post, Carol Ann and Warren Rose, Dinah and Sarah Yukich

🕯️ ARTISANS CIRCLE
Terry Barclay, Amber and Jeffrey DeClaire, Eva Dodds, Frank Edwards and Ann Williams, Lynnteri and Bharat Gandhi, Jennifer Gilbert, Karen Hagenlocker and Henry Whiting, III, Diana Hawes and James Kirby, Masami Hida and Camilo Serna, Mark Johnson and Marc Zupmore, Carl and Abby Klemmer, The LaGrasso Family, Beth and Dick Lilley, Judith Lindstrom, AC Roche and Nathan Costa, Kelly and Matthew Shuert, Amy and Mark Spitznagel, Alyson and Thomas Timko, Gregory Wittkopp and Dora Apel

🧭 SNOWBIRD
Judy and Jonathon Anderson, Desiree Caldwell, Pamela and William Ge**er, Linda and Roderick Gillum, Phillip Morici and Joseph Nieradka, Anne Smith Towbes

Sponsorships are still available!

We hope to see your name on our donor wall soon.



📸: House Party 2025. Photography by Andrew Potter. Courtesy of Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

01/23/2026

Snow Day!

Cranbrook Schools are closed due to the superb winter weather we’ve been having. So, we’re pulling out an image from the Archives for this ❄

Flashback to a snowy day in 1969 with students walking across the quadrangle with the Saarinen-designed Peacock Gate in the background.

📸: Photography by Harvey Croze. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.