Last updated: June 20, 2018
Article
2015 National Historic Landmark Designations
Photo courtesy of Camille Fife, The Westerly Group, Inc.
Samara: West Lafayette, Indiana
Samara, John E. and Catherine E. Christian House, West Lafayette, Indiana. Samara is a complete and fully intact work of Frank Lloyd Wright and is exceptional for its ability to convey the master architect’s philosophy about providing affordable housing for the common man. Completed in 1956, Samara is an example of a Wrightian late period Usonian residence with all related furnishings and accoutrements designed or specified by the architect, a characteristic of the finest examples of Wright’s work, and therefore a fully realized design.
Photo courtesy of John R. Kelly, 1934. [HABS IN-24-20-1].
Duck Creek Aqueduct:
Metamora, Indiana
Duck Creek Aqueduct is the only surviving covered wood aqueduct in the United States. Built to carry the Whitewater Canal, and associated canal traffic, over Duck Creek at Metamora, Indiana, it is a remnant of the vast national internal improvements movement that occurred in the early- to mid-nineteenth century, and it illustrates the widespread application of timber bridge technology to nineteenth-century transportation systems.
Photo courtesy of Shirley and Norman Baugher.
Henry Gerber House:
Chicago, Illinois
Henry Gerber founded and operated the Society for Human Rights out of his home at this location in 1924-25. The society was the first chartered organization advocating for the civil rights of gay people in the United States. Because of his involvement with the society Gerber was unjustifiably arrested and had his property confiscated, which makes the house a marker of the pervasive discrimination and persecution of sexual and gender minorities in the twentieth century.
By Local hero (Own work) {CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
General Motors Technical Center:
Warren, Michigan
The General Motors Technical Center is one of the most important works of architect Eero Saarinen (1910-1961). The Technical Center was built between 1949-1961 and marks Saarinen’s emergence onto the international stage as an important designer independent of his work with his father Eliel, as the final design as executed was the concept of Eero. The Technical Center project was embraced around the world as the embodiment of the spirit of the post-World War II age in America and of the prosperity and modernity of the nation and its people.
National Park Service
McGregor Memorial Conference Center:
Detroit, Michigan
Built in 1958, the McGregor Memorial Conference Center in Detroit, Michigan, is an exceptionally important work by master architect Minoru Yamaski. Yamasaki was one of the most significant Modern architects of the twentieth century. The McGregor Memorial Conference Center, located on the campus of Wayne State University, represents a key turning point in Yamasaki’s career, as he moved from the International Style into his own distinct vision of the style later called New Formalism.
Originally published in "Exceptional Places" Vol. 10, 2015, a newsletter of the Division of Cultural Resources, Midwest Region. Written by National Park Service Staff.