Kingswood School Cranbrook Green Lobby Stair Baluster

The lustrous Green Lobby serves as the main entrance to the academic wing (Section A) of Kingswood School for Girls and is located just off the main portico entrance. The Green Lobby leads directly to the offices of the Dean of Upper School Girls and the Director of Schools, as well as the Common Room (the historic Library). The stairway at the south end of the lobby is one of Cranbrook’s most memorable architectural features. 

The Green Lobby is named for the handmade green tiles fired by Mary Chase Perry Stratton in Detroit in the kilns of her Pewabic Pottery. While the floor tiles were replaced with non-Pewabic tiles in the 1990s, the wainscot and stairway still have the original Pewabic tile. Leaded glass doors and windows illuminate the space. The ceiling is painted with complimentary silver and green decorations, the work of Pipsan Saarinen Swanson. Eero Saarinen designed the benches and Pewabic-made sculpture base and light fixture. Like all of the primary Kingswood interiors, the Green Lobby is at once a functional room, an aesthetic triumph, and beloved by students and alumni.

These Balusters are in use in and are a principal contributing element to the Cranbrook Educational Community’s Board of Trustees-approved Cultural Heritage Area, the Kingswood School Green Lobby.

At Cranbrook, Cultural Heritage Areas are those interior and exterior spaces on the campus, including landscapes, that have exceptional aesthetic or historical significance for the Cranbrook Educational Community.

Kevin Adkisson
Curator
Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
September 2022