Research Guides: Design: Detroit 2025

The Henry Ford Museum

Henry Ford Museum Collections
This is the link to the main collections page.
Research Library Catalog
Search for books, trade catalogs, archival material, periodicals, videos, and more.
Archival Finding Aids
This site provides search and display for Benson Ford Research Center archival finding aids, which are provided in PDF format.
Digital Dress Collection
This collection contains images of clothing worn in Michigan during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, offering insight into Michigan life and society. FULLY DIGITIZED.
Herman Miller Consortium Collection
Several hundred historic pieces of furniture and product literature currently held by multiple institutions, including The Henry Ford. FULLY DIGITIZED

Detroit Institute of the Arts

Detroit Institute of the Arts Research Library and Archives
The DIA's Research Library & Archives is critical to serving the scholarly activities of the museum. The collection contains more than 191,000 volumes, 300 periodical titles and 5,000 cubic feet of archival material in a variety of formats. Resources include DIA publications, auction catalogues, catalogues raisonnés, national and international museum publications, artist monographs, and finding aids to our archival collections. Foreign publications make up a substantial part of our collection.
Digitized Exibition Catalogs
Exhibition catalogs from 1886-1923 digitized in PDF format.
DIA Library Catalog Search
Search the research library catalog.
DIA Finding Aids
Search the finding aids.

Cranbrook Art Museum

Cranbrook Art Museum Research Tools
Cranbrook Art Museum is part of a broader educational community dedicated to scholarship in the arts, humanities, and sciences. Through our affiliations with the Cranbrook Academy of Art and the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, they offer a variety of resources for researchers interested in art, design, architecture, and the history of Cranbrook.
Academy of Art Library
The Cranbrook Academy of Art Library houses about 27,000 volumes, the majority within the visual arts fields. The collection is strong in contemporary art and has extensive holdings in each of the ten disciplines studied at the Academy.
Cranbrook Archives
The Cranbrook Archives works to document and preserve items critical to Cranbrook’s history. Its core collections pertain to the growth of Cranbrook Educational Community, from its founding in 1904 by George and Ellen Booth to the 319-acre campus it is today. The Archives collects Cranbrook's institutional records, as well as those from auxiliary organizations affiliated with the community. Additional holdings include manuscripts of notable individuals associated with Cranbrook such as the Booth and Saarinen families, faculty, staff and alumni.
Image Resources
Cranbrook Art Museum maintains an image archive of objects in our collection as well as images of exhibitions after 1980 (exhibition images preceding 1980 are maintained by Cranbrook Archives). Copyright for some images is held by artists or their estates, in which case prior reproduction permissions must be obtained before an image can be released.

Saarien House

Saarien House is part of the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, which reveals the Cranbrook story and offers intellectual and experiential engagement with its legacy. By sustaining and interpreting the community’s unparalleled landscape, architecture, collections, and archives, the Center provides memorable educational experiences and meaningful research opportunities for regional, national, and international audiences.

Cranbrook Archives Overview
Cranbrook Archives is the primary research center for the documentation and study of Cranbrook Educational Community's remarkable history. As Cranbrook's official repository, the Archives is responsible for collecting, preserving, and making available community and divisional records of permanent value. In addition, the Archives collects the papers of members of the Booth, Scripps, and Saarinen families; the records of Christ Church Cranbrook and ancillary organizations affiliated with Cranbrook; as well as the personal papers of faculty, staff, alumni, and other individuals who have been associated with the community since its founding in 1904.
Collections
Our collections include architectural records, AV materials, ephemera, institutional records, manuscript papers, oral histories, photographs, and more.
Finding Aids
Our Finding Aids, available in searchable pdfs, describe more than 150 processed collections available for research.
Digital Image Database
We have over 500,000 photographic images in our collection, with more than 4,500 currently digitized. You can access these via our digital image database.
Digital Collections Database
This eMuseum portal provides access to a growing selection of objects in the Permanent Cultural Properties Collection of Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.
Online Exhibitions
Online Exhibitions from the Archives offer a window into the rich and diverse heritage of Cranbrook.
Cranbrook Archives
In 1942, the Archives unofficially began as a form of records management for the papers of George Booth and the Cranbrook Foundation.

_{Overview photo by P.D. Rearick, CAA '10}
_{Thumbnail photos courtesy of Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, Bloomfield Hills.}

The Heidelberg Project

The Heidelberg Project’s mission is to challenge the status quo, create a community for art, and cultivate a unique gathering space for all who seek inspiration outside museum walls. We are a catalyst for change, a platform for social justice and a cultural asset for Detroit.

Design: Detroit 2025

Know Before You Go!

Know BEFORE you go! Search the finding aids of the collections to discover what you are interested in seeing or discovering before you visit the museum so that your time can be spent with the materials rather than figuring out what you what to see.

The Henry Ford Museum

Detroit Institute of the Arts

Cranbrook Art Museum

Saarien House

The Heidelberg Project

The Heidelberg Project