Saarinen House Tours with Jason Carter Exhibition

Repeats every week every Sunday until Sun Nov 26 2017.
Cranbrook Art Museum
39221 Woodward Avenue
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304

Saarinen House is Eliel Saarinen’s Art Deco masterwork and the jewel of Cranbrook’s architectural treasures. Designed in the late 1920s and located at the heart of Cranbrook Academy of Art, from 1930 through 1950 Saarinen House served as the home and studio of the Finnish-American designer Eliel Saarinen—Cranbrook’s first resident architect and the Art Academy’s first president and head of the Architecture Department—and Loja Saarinen—the Academy’s first head of the Weaving Department. The extraordinary interior, now impeccably restored, features the Saarinens’ original furnishings, including Eliel’s delicately veneered furniture and Loja’s sumptuous textiles, as well as early furniture designs by their son, Eero Saarinen.

TEMPORARY SAARINEN HOUSE EXHIBITION
From September 22 through November 26, 2017, tours of Saarinen House will feature the exhibition, Jason Carter at Saarinen House: #digital_presence. For this project, which is the third in a series of interventions in Saarinen House designed to rethink the purpose and experience of visitors within historic house museums, Cranbrook Academy of Art graduate Jason E. Carter is replacing eight framed artworks owned by the Saarinens with eight of his new paintings. In these works, Carter imagines the carefully composed pre-digital interiors illuminated by the cool blue light of the digital devices of an imagined twenty-first-century resident.  For more information on the exhibition, click here.  

TOUR SCHEDULE
Visitors will be able to experience Saarinen House on regularly scheduled public tours May 5 through November 26, Fridays and Saturdays at 2pm and Sundays at 1pm and 3pm.

TOUR FEES
Cranbrook Art Museum ArtMembers: Free
Adults: $15
Seniors (65 and older): $13
Studends with ID: $11

RESERVATIONS
Please call 248.645.3320 or email artmuseum@cranbrook.edu to make a reservation. All tours start at the Cranbrook Art Museum, where tickets may also be purchased on the day of the tour.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Check-in

All tours of Saarinen House depart from the front desk of Cranbrook Art Museum.

Tour Groups
Tours are limited to 12 guests.

Tour Length
The tours are approximately 75 minutes in length and include stairs and two ten-minute walks on Cranbrook’s campus. Tours take place rain or shine.

Shoes
To protect the carpeting and flooring in Saarinen House, you will be asked to remove your shoes and wear booties that will be provided.

Children
For the safety and comfort of all visitors, children younger than eight years old, including infants and toddlers, are not permitted on this tour.

Accessibility
Due to the historical status and intimate nature of the house, many rooms and passageways are very narrow and therefore the house is not wheelchair accessible. All tours are walking tours and guests must be able to walk and stand throughout most of the tour. There are no places to sit down in the house itself.

Coats and Bags
Only small wallets and handheld cameras are permitted on the tours. Please leave all backpacks, purses, camera bags, camera equipment and other cumbersome items in vehicles. This policy was created for the security and protection of Saarinen House and its collection of fine and decorative art.

Restrooms
There are no public restroom facilities at the house itself; please use the facilities at Cranbrook Art Museum before beginning your tour.

PRIVATE TOURS
A limited number of Private Tours of Saarinen House are available May through October, with at least three weeks advance notice.

Private Tour Fees* (includes free Admission to Cranbrook Art Museum)
*There is a Minimum Private Tour Group Fee of $100

Cranbrook Art Museum ArtMembers: $15
Adults and Seniors: $20
Students with ID: $15

To inquire about the availability of a Private Tour, please call 248.645.3307 or email center@cranbrook.edu.

PHOTO CREDITS
Photography by James Haefner. Courtesy of Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.