Thank you to The Detroit News for covering the incredible work of our Director of Business Development - Heidi Pfannes!
"Little could Heidi Pfannes have known that decades after she first learned about Albert Kahn that she would one day spearhead an effort to preserve the Detroit architect’s legacy."
Photo: Clarence Tabb Jr., The Detroit News.
"It wasn’t deliberate. A series of life-altering circumstances relocated Pfannes and her family from southwestern to southeastern Michigan. In 2014, Pfannes, an interior design major in college who gained valuable years of experience in the construction and architecture fields, landed a senior-level position at the firm, founded by Kahn.
As the firm’s director of business development, Pfannes regularly finds herself fielding inquiries from clients and others interested in gaining access to the company’s archives. That on-going experience inspired an idea: Create a non-profit, community-based organization to preserve and maintain the archives and cultivate the legacy of Kahn, who is considered one of the foremost industrial architects of the 20th century but who also remains largely unknown.
'Outside of the Detroit area, people don’t know who Kahn is,' says Pfannes, recalling she only learned about the renowned architect as a student at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.'“He has impacted so much of the world and people don’t know who he is. We have work to do. That story has to be told.'"