Friday, NoveirlUer 30, 1945
THE JEWISH- NEWS
Kahn Firm Starts Designing
Detroit's Jewish Hospital
Page- Eleven
To-the Jewish People
Halevy Center Plan
Revealed at Social
BY GABRIELA MISTRAL
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Gabriela Mistral, famous Chilean poetess who was
recently awarded the.Nobel Prize for literature for 1915. wrote the fol-
lowing poem last year on the occasion of the disclosure of the Nazi
massacre of Jews in Poland.)
•
At the overflow gathering of
Detroit Halevy Singing Society in
Planning Operations Begin This Month on First Unit to the Jewish Community Center on
Consist of 200 Beds; Local World-famous Architect ural
Nov. 18, entertainment was pro-
Jewish race, flesh of sufferings,
Jewish race, river of bitterness:
h the skies and the earth, you endure
and even your forest of clamors grows.
and Engineering Company Picked Over 20 Bids
vided by two members of Halevy,
Shirley Zaft, soprano, and Jack
Rosberg, tenor, who were accom-
panied by Bella Goldberg.
3 111! I
Dr. William Klein, chairman of
tni
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i hi:iitti:2 4#001:43- 21:6 1
Halevy activities, introduced the
,
IS.
T1,10*4113 ". n "
participants, and as chairman of
the building committee, present-
ed the plan for financing the pro-
posed Halevy Music Center. This
plan calls for a drive for Halevy
members and patrons.
Halevy chorus, now preparing
for its 21st annual concert under
the direction of Dan Frohman,
University Hospital at Ann Arbor, a Kahn-Designed Institution
and,featuring Igor Gorin, is seek-
Designing of Detroit's Jewish Hospital is under way, ing more members, and invites
with Albert Kahn Associated Architects and Engineers, Inc., singers to attend rehearsals at
creators of over two billion dollars' worth of construction on Roosevelt School, Linwood at
Burlingame, at 9 p. m. every
six continents, as architect. Planning operations were begun Tuesday.
in November on the first unit, to comprise at least 200 beds,
of a hospital which, with the support of Detroit Jewish
philanthropy, may expand to be-
come one of America's leading
medical centers.
Dr. J. J. Golub, superintendent
of New York's Hospital for Joint
Diseases and the Jewish Hospital
Association's consultant, as well
as an advisor group of local
physicians and surgeons, will co-
operate with the Kahn organiza-
tion in planning the hospital.
Formed 40 Years Ago
The Kahn organization was
founded 40 years ago in Detroit
by the late Albert Kahn. • It has
ALBERT KAHN
(1869-1942)
designed such well known indus-
trial and commercial structures
in this area as the General Mo-
tors, Fisher, and New Center
Buildings, the Free Press, News,
and Times plants, the Kresge
national headquarters, and fac-
tories for Chrysler, Ford, General
Motors. and Packard.
Hospitals which it has planned
include Harper, Herman Kiefer,
Women's; Children's, Ypsilanti
State, and University.
Choice of the Kahn firm to de-
sign the Jewish Hospital came
after thorough consideration of
20 leading architectural organ-
izations. For each candidate,
Harry Frank, Nate S. Shapero
-and Israel Davidson, constituting
the Jewish Hospital Association's
sub-committee on selection of an
architect, together with the en-
tire hospital committee, weighed
such fundamental factors as
architectural competence, engi-
neering skill, experience in hos-
pital design, ability to supervise
construction, and professional
fee. The final choice was unan-
imous.
Kahn Son of Rabbi
The eldest of six children of an
immigrant rabbi, Albert Kahn
arrived in Detroit from Luxem-
bourg in. 1879, was fired from his
first job in an architect's office,
and went on to a career that in-
cluded the designing of pace-set-
ting structures throughout the
world, from hospitals to
trial -plants and from Detroit to
Stalingrad.
Outstanding for his engineering
achievements, Albert Kahn put a
high premium on fitness and sim-
plicity in architecture, seeking
distinction and beauty Of design
always. "A hospital," he said,
"should not look like a hotel, nor
a home like a laboratory," and
"the mere clothing of the skele-
ton of an airplane makes a thing
of beauty—so with buildings."
Select 25 Key Men
The Albert Kahn organization
today represents the culmination
of a plan inaugurated by Albert
and Louis Kahn well before the
former's death in 1942. Recog-
nizing , that large-scale architec-
ture had advanced far beyond
the capacity of any one man to
administer its ramified and high
ly technical modern.phases, the
brothers admitted 25 key men
into the , management group as
"Associates," thereby broadening
the firm's supervisory scope and
assuring its perpetuation after the
Kahns were no longer active.
Today, George H. Miehls, presi-
dent and treasurer, Sheldon
Marston, executive vice-president,
Saul Saulson, Robert Linton, and
0. L. Canfield, vice-presidents,
and George K. Scryrngeour, sec-
retary, constitute the executive
staff of the organization generally
conceded to be the largest archi-
tectural firm in the world.
Firm of Many Experts
The versatility of the Kahn
firm in being able to take a com-
mission for any large construc-
tion project, whether a great
manufacturing layout, an airport,
or a health center, bespeaks an
extraordinarily high degree of
specialization within the organiz-
ation. It has been said of the
Kahn offices in the New Center
Building that they house as many
specialists per square foot of
floor space as any like area in
the world.
The . average layman conceives
of an architectUral workshop as a
group of men bending over draft-
ing boards, and there are drafts-
men in the Kahn organization,
but the number of graduate
architects and engineers in it
rivals the personnel of a great
research • laboratory. ' •
There are architects, civil en-
gineers, • mechanical engineers,
electrical engineers—degree men
in lighting, heating, ventilation—
specialists in every profession
"and industry having to do with
modern design and construction.
There is even an expert on park-
ing lot services.
Never have they let'you expose your wounds to the air,
never have they let you recline in the shade,
to squeeze and purify your wound,
redder than a red rose.
With your moans you have sung a lullaby to the world,
and she plays with the fibres of your weeping.
The lines in your face, that I love so dearly,
are like open wounds of mountain depth.
Tremblingly you women cuddle their children,
tremblingly your men harvest their grain.
A nightmare penetrates into your speaking
and your words say only "the death prayer."
Jewish race and still you have fight
and voice of honey, to extoll your God,
and recite the Song of Songs
with tongue, and lip and heart cut up.
In your women still walks Mary,
on your face is drawn the profile of Christ;
on the slopes of Zion they have seen him
call you in vain, when the day dies .. .
`Story of Maccabees'
Over NBC This Sunday
"The Maccabees," a Hanukah
story by Morton Wishengrad, will
be presented on the Eternal Light,
Sunday (NBC, 11 a.m.; WEAF,
12 noon, EST). - The program is
presented under the auspices of
the Jewish Theological Seminary
of America. Rabbi Abraham E.
Halpern of Cong. Bnai Amoona
in St. Louis, Mo., will deliver a
brief address.
Hanukah
Greetings-
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