Famous people's places / Detroit – Midtown
Rackham Building
A marble-clad Art Deco memorial building in Detroit's Midtown Cultural Center, opened in 1942, whose Engineers' Lounge still holds a 1941 mural by Hungarian-born painter Zoltan Sepeshy.
01 / The story of this place
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The Horace H. Rackham Educational Memorial Building, funded by the fortune of Ford Motor Company investor Horace H. Rackham, broke ground in July 1940 and opened on January 28, 1942, across Farnsworth Street from the Detroit Institute of Arts. Designed by Harley, Ellington & Day, the 121,000-square-foot building is clad in white Georgia marble and decorated with sculpture by Marshall Fredericks depicting educators, engineers and scientists, reflecting its original purpose of supporting graduate engineering education. In 1941, Hungarian-born painter Zoltan Sepeshy, who taught at Cranbrook Academy of Art and later became its president, was commissioned to paint a mural for the building's Engineers' Lounge depicting a scientist, an artist and a farmer. That mural and a carved marble fireplace remain in the room today. The building still stands in Detroit's Cultural Center and continues to house offices and event space.
- Opened January 28, 1942, funded by the Horace Rackham fortune
- Clad in white Georgia marble with sculpture by Marshall Fredericks
- Zoltan Sepeshy painted a mural for its Engineers' Lounge in 1941
- The mural still hangs in the building today
Famous Detroiters
Famous people tied to this place 2
Lexicon entries for the people who lived, worked, performed or liked to spend time here.
- Horace Rackham 1858–1933 · lawyer, original Ford Motor Company shareholder, philanthropist
Memorial
Cultural Center building funded from his estate for University of Michigan extension work and the Engineering Society of Detroit.
- Zoltan Sepeshy 1898–1974 · painter, art educator
Worked here
Site of his 1941 mural on the scientist, the artist and the farmer; current state of the mural not verified.
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Sources & fact check · Checked: 2026-09-25
An independently written bilingual guide. This collection is not an attendance-based ranking.
03 / Events
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