East Lansing Modern

Driving/Biking Tour

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Grand River Avenue, running east and west, divides East Lansing in two. Michigan State University is to the south; the majority of the city is to the north. The city grew enormously in the 1940s and 1950s as the GI Bill of Rights brought thousands of returning veterans to the university. Housing was required not only for the students and their young families, but also for the expanding faculty. Most bought modest traditional homes within walking distance of the campus, yet some embraced modernist principles and worked primarily with local architects to design their residences. The Lantern Hill area is a singular example of planning initiated by a group of faculty. In 1950 the corporation purchased a large tract of land just outside the city limits and subdivided it into forty-one plots. Hugh Stubbins, a Massachusetts architect, was commissioned to supply three different residential plans. Of the twenty-four members who worked with Stubbins, most chose the same design, achieving economies of scale that enabled these young faculty members to build affordable architect-designed homes. Lantern Hill was not the first attempt by MSU faculty to develop a cooperative community. In the late 1930s a small group commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design houses for them in nearby Okemos. Unable to secure financing the group disbanded; however, Alma Goetsch and Katherine Winckler eventually built their home in 1940. While there are no Wright-designed buildings in East Lansing, a local admirer built a mirror image of the Goetsch-Winckler house on Oakland Road.

Commercial, religious, and organizational buildings are among the city’s most modern. Although the majority of these are modestly modern, several striking high-style examples can be found on Abbot Road. The East Lansing Public Library was designed by the local firm, Manson, Jackson & Kane. The firm also designed a number of residences in East Lansing, many featuring a butterfly roof and an open plan. Farther north at the intersection of Abbot and Saginaw Highway are two of East Lansing’s finest buildings. On the northwest corner, Minoru Yamasaki’s Michigan State Medical Society building has a graceful presence. The façade features delicate, two-story arches and floor-to-ceiling glazing. Inside, the quiet spaces and original Knoll and Herman Miller furniture still reflect Yamasaki’s original design intent.

Just east of Abbot is the Michigan Education Association building, designed by the Warren Holmes Company, another local firm. The original reflecting pools have been removed, and the interior has undergone several renovations; however, the building’s central focus—the interior courtyard, designed in a Japanese style—remains unaltered. Further north along Abbot Road, Alden B. Dow’s Eastminster Presbyterian Church sits comfortably atop a rising slope. The sensitive addition on the east side, designed by Manson, Jackson & Kane, reflects Dow’s strong horizontal lines and makes the church an excellent example of his organic approach to architecture. Dow also designed several residences in East Lansing and Okemos. Many people in mid-Michigan were exposed to modernist design at Liebermann’s in downtown Lansing, Betty Price’s glass-fronted gift store designed by George Nelson. Thoroughly a modernist, Price commissioned Kenneth C. Black Associates, a local firm better known for its commercial buildings, to design her East Lansing home.

Throughout the city the flat roofs and horizontal lines of East Lansing’s modern architecture present a modest impression from the street, hiding the spaciousness within. Unlike its traditional counterpart, modern architecture surprises and delights through the manipulation of space, light and unexpected design.