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Later, he turned from concrete to steel and glass. Under Henry Ford's influence, he learned to build whole factories as units, getting everything under one roof. Ford also taught him the superiority of vast one-story structures for heavy manufacture, structures that obviated the necessity for carting heavy materials and engines up & down in elevators. For Ford alone Kahn has built approximately 1,000 buildings.
Weekly Pay: $45. Albert Kahn's personality still reflects that curious mixture of shrewd materialism and esthetic refinement that has made him the prototype of the machine-age architect. Methodical in his working hours, he gets to the office early every morning, drives himself incessantly until evening. Each week he solemnly accepts the weekly paycheck of $45 which he has been getting for the past 40 years, carefully turning over $40 of it to his wife and keeping $5 for "lunches and extras."
Outside his office Albert Kahn leads the quiet life of a man of culture. He owns a whole gallery of French Impressionist paintings, on which he dotes, and spends many happy moments with his record collection, shushing anyone who dares whisper while he is listening to Beethoven or Brahms. A member of six golf clubs, he has yet to make his first pass at a golf ball.
Though his own tastes in architecture are conservative (about once a year he designs and builds a prim little conventional house just for the fun of it), Kahn considers the leaders in U.S. architecture to be Frank Lloyd Wright, Paul Cret and Eliel Saarinen. About his own work as architect laureate to U.S. industry, he is modestly matter-of-fact. Says he: "Architecture is 90% business, 10% art."