Lansing Municipal Airport - Ford Hangar at Lansing Municipal Airport

Ford Hangar At Lansing Municipal Airport

The Ford Hangar, located at the Lansing Municipal Airport in Lansing, Illinois, is an airplane hangar built beginning in 1926, and completed by early January 1927. It was established as a historic building on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. It was built under the direction of Henry Ford to serve as a facility to produce and display Ford Tri-Motor airplanes.

Ford purchased 1400 acres of land in Lansing in 1923 to build an airport to connect southland Chicago with his factories in Detroit. Beginning June 1, 1926, work began on clearing land to build the hangar which was expected to, upon completion, hold three of Ford's Tri-Motor planes. The noted architect, Albert Kahn, oversaw the design and construction of the building. He was Henry Ford's chief architect and wanted to design a space that would solve a number of problems found in early hangars. He incorporated a number of innovations into the building that had not existed in airplane hangars prior to that time. Most hangars were often poorly designed, temporary buildings that were not well lit. To solve this, Kahn incorporated three distinct features into the building. He used an architectural technique known as cantilevered construction that allowed the interior of the building to be open without need for columns to support the building, as well as reduce wind pressure on the building. In addition he designed the hangar doors on the north and south side of the building to be easily moved by just one person. Operating on a wheeled track located on the inside of the building, the doors could be opened to any length by one person, regardless of the current wind or weather conditions. In addition, Kahn also looked to improve the overall environment of the building by incorporating as much natural light in the building as possible. As a result, he incorporated five large 15 by 18 foot window openings that, when combined with the open sliding doors, allowed for natural light to reach about 40 percent of the total floor area of the hangar. Ford's dreams of Tri-Motor construction were hampered by the beginning of the Great Depression. Ford stopped making airplanes by July 1932, and rented the airport land and the hangar to his former airport manager Elmer L. Browne, and later the Hammond aviator Guy W. Amick. The hangar and the airport were acquired by the Village of Lansing in 1976 in order to qualify for federal funding. The hangar was in its original use until 2011, when it was vacated for preservation purposes. Efforts to rehabilitate the building to its original appearance are currently underway.