2014-06-09 - Cranbrook Natatorium

The Natatorium at Cranbrook, a swimming facility at the private school outside Detroit, is a building I had been wanting to see since my days in architecture school. I believe that the architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien gave a lecture during my second year, and that is when I first learned of it. It took me nearly 20 years to finally see it in person for the first time. I was in the Detroit area on the occasion of a family wedding and my dad graciously spent the afternoon with me exploring the campus.

An aspect of the work of these architects which has long appealed to me, and emerges in nearly all of their projects, is a sense of quiet and restraint that the buildings have. They are not forceful spectacles which demand your short term attention and leave you unsatisfied. These buildings are made with intention, material rigor, and compositional grace which invite the curious visitor to explore their secrets over time. I was never a student at Cranbrook nor a relative of one, so my interactions are far more limited than those who can experience it daily over the course of many years. However I now have the fortune of living fairly close to the campus and can visit intermittently and see the building in the various seasons and weathers Michigan has to offer.

An axial lawn connects this building to the Art Museum at the other end of the campus. Instead of putting the main mass of the building directly on the axis, the architects put it to the side nestled into the forest. A gently folded wall is and a couple of trees are the terminus of the vista. Bricks, either Norman sized red and purple-toned ironspots or Modular sized with a watercolor-esque copper patina glaze, wrap the building on all sides. The colors are not replicas of but complimentary to the trunks, leaves and needles of the surrounding forest. This pool is famous for its operable wall panels in wood and the gigantic round roof openings, also operable, which use natural breezes to exhaust the air and replace the smell of chlorine with natural pine. When desired, rain and snow can fall into the pool, further connecting the interior space to the exterior world in a way that most architecture only attempts through visual means. 

For more information, watch this short video from the Cranbrook Art Museum about the architects and the design of the building.

Camera:  Nikon D200
Medium: Digital