Conference Lecture

Today Detroit is known internationally as a post-industrial behemoth struggling to reinvent itself. However, in the 1910s and 1920s, Detroit was America’s fourth largest city and the wealthiest per capita. Detroit was not only a bastion of innovation, but of the arts, music, culture, and architecture. And while the city’s decline has been well documented, its architectural legacy remains vast. Amongst its boulevards and neighborhoods are some of the finest American buildings of the early 20th century.

In 2020, after a nearly 10 year hiatus from scholarly research on historic ironwork, Gabriel Craig set out to identify and document his native city’s historic metalwork. In this lecture Craig will narrate his exploits in rediscovering Detroit’s historic architecture and ironwork, with particular attention to his exhaustive search to find all of Samuel Yellin’s works scattered across the city. Through his research Craig has found forgotten works, developed new insights to known masterworks, and helped create a new appreciation in Detroit architecture circles for the importance of revival era architecture and ironwork.

Gabriel Craig is a metalsmith, writer, and historian. In 2012, he founded Smith Shop with his wife and partner, Amy Weiks. Their nationally prominent studio produces functional and ornamental ironwork of extraordinary design and craftsmanship. Smith Shop has been widely recognized for excellence by publications including Metropolis, Dwell, Food & Wine, Saveur, American Craft, and Metalsmith. In 2020, they received the Craftsman award for excellence from the Parducci Society of Detroit recognizing their contributions to historic architecture in their native city. Craig’s work is in prominent private collections nationally and internationally, and most notably in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Craig holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Metals from Western Michigan University and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Metalsmithing from Virginia Commonwealth University—where he also studied architectural and decorative arts history. He is an expert on historic ironwork, having lectured extensively on the subject including at the Virginia Historical Society and at numerous colleges and universities. His current research focuses on architectural ironwork in Detroit from 1900-1935, and French ironwork of the Gothic and Gothic Revival periods. He lives in a fine historic home in Detroit with his wife, two children, and shop dog.