The University of Michigan

by Wilfred Byron Shaw

The Campus Elms

Similarly the Law Building has undergone many transformations, while the old Chemistry Building, now used by the Departments of Physiology, Materia Medica, and Economics as make-shift quarters, has lost through successive additions almost all trace of that first little laboratory which exemplified the progressive spirit of the University in her early days. The new Chemistry Building on the north side was completed in 1910 and cost with equipment about $300,000. It is four stories high, 230 feet long by 130 feet wide, and is built about two interior courts. The building contains two amphitheaters, laboratories for organic and qualitative chemistry, metallurgy, physical chemistry, and gas analysis, as well as the College of Pharmacy.

Just beside it to the west rises the largest building on the Campus, the Natural Science Building, which houses the Departments of Botany, Geology, Forestry, Mineralogy, Zoölogy, and Psychology. This building, which was something of a departure in laboratory construction when it was completed in 1916, is built upon the unit system, and consists essentially of concrete piers, whose uniform spacing divides the rooms and laboratories into equal units, or multiples, with practically the total width between piers opening into windows. This is, in effect, a modern adaptation of the old Gothic principle, though it emphasizes the horizontal and lacks entirely the buttresses and pinnacles which gave the medieval church builders their inspiration. It marks, however, a new era in laboratory construction, for not only are the laboratories flooded with light, but they are carefully designed for the purpose for which they are to be used. It is also to be noted that each department is installed in a complete section of four floors, from basement to top. The building, which cost $375,000, has about 155,000 square feet of floor space and like the neighboring Chemistry Building is built about an open court. The same principle of construction has also been followed as far as practicable in the new Library Building.

Other buildings on the Campus which have not been mentioned elsewhere are the Physics Laboratory, the Museum, and Tappan Hall. The Physics Laboratory was built in 1886-87. Within twenty years it proved inadequate and in 1905 an addition costing $45,000 became necessary, which contains among other features a well-equipped lecture room accommodating four hundred students. Until the completion of the larger lecture room in the Natural Science Building this was in great demand for many University lectures. Tappan Hall, a class-room building, in a portion of which the Department of Education now has its headquarters, was erected in 1894-95 and stands near the southwest corner of the Campus just at the rear of Alumni Memorial Hall.

The University Museum was erected in 1881 and stands between University Hall and Alumni Memorial Hall. It is far from being the most successful of the University Buildings architecturally, and as it has been for some time entirely inadequate for the collections it houses, it will not be many years before the need for a new museum will be presented to the Legislature. In addition to the offices of the Curator, Professor A.G. Ruthven, Morningside, '03, and his staff, the building contains the University's zoölogical and anthropological collections, very popular with casual visitors to the Campus. The former includes a fine exhibit of mounted mammals and some 1,600 birds, as well as reptiles, fishes, mollusks and insects, in all of which particular effort has been made to show forms native to the State. The Anthropological Collection includes the entire exhibit of the Chinese Government at the New Orleans Exposition in 1885, as well as many items from China and the Philippines, collected by the Beal-Steere Expedition. The collections in geology, mineralogy, botany, materia medica, chemistry, the industrial arts, and the fine arts are to be found in the Natural Science Building and other buildings devoted to these special subjects.

For many years the original forty acres of the Rumsey farm were more than ample for the needs of the University. The Observatory, the first building to find a place apart from the Campus, was set upon its hilltop some distance northeast, because of the need of clear air and quiet; advantages now almost lost in the proximity of the hospitals, heating plant, and railroads that portends an eventual change in location. The Observatory has grown rapidly since its establishment by Dr. Tappan in 1852. The building was last remodeled and enlarged in 1911 when a reflecting telescope, with a 37-5/8 inch parabolic mirror, largely made in the shops of the University, was installed. In light gathering power this instrument is in a class with the Lick and Yerkes refractors, and it is at least as effective in astronomical photography, the purpose for which it was designed. The new brick tower, with its copper-covered dome, rises sixty feet above the basement and is forty feet in diameter.

Just beyond the Observatory, on the crest of the hills defining the Huron valley, is the largest group of university buildings off the Campus, the old University Hospitals, which are to be replaced in 1922 by the new Hospital, ground for which was broken in September, 1919. Following the erection of the first building in 1891 an office building was added in 1896 to be followed rapidly by other sections, including a children's pavilion erected in 1901, known as the Palmer Ward, the bequest of the widow of Dr. Alonzo B. Palmer, who also left $15,000 for the maintenance of free beds in it. The entire group of buildings numbers ten, including the State Psychopathic Hospital.

The new Hospital is to be one of the largest and most completely equipped in America. It is composed of a series of wings taking the general form of a double letter "Y" connected at the stems, with a smaller office building in front and a larger wing containing laboratories, operating and class rooms at the rear. The building is 420 feet long and six stories high with provision for an additional three stories at some future time. It is built of reinforced concrete upon regularly spaced piers, and is similar in construction to the Natural Science Building.

The work of the Homeopathic Department is centered in its fine Hospital building with an adjacent Children's Ward and Nurses' Home just off the northeast corner of the Campus. The Dental Building, erected in 1908, is situated to the west, just across the street from the Gymnasium. It contains many laboratories and lecture rooms, as well as an operating room fitted with eighty dental chairs.