0701 A New Museum Building

In 1939, construction began on a new Academy Library and Art Museum, the only two remaining unfinished buildings from Eliel Saarinen’s final site plans. To date, Saarinen had already completed the Cranbrook School for Boys (1927), faculty housing (1929), the first Arts and Crafts Building (1929), Saarinen House and Milles House (1930), Kingswood School for Girls (1931), Cranbrook Institute of Science (1937), and the Academy dormitories (1938). Included in the plan for the new Art Museum and Library was an outdoor sculpture museum by resident sculptor Carl Milles and his protégé, Marshall Fredericks.