The University of Michigan

by Wilfred Byron Shaw

Of the other buildings off the Campus, the new Union, Hill Auditorium and the three dormitories for women are the most conspicuous. The Union, with its magnificent tower and imposing yet withal beautifully proportioned masses, has been mentioned as the dominant architectural feature of State Street. Hill Auditorium, which was made possible by a bequest of $200,000 left by Regent Arthur Hill, '65e, of Saginaw upon his death in 1909, forms one of the unique features of the University's equipment. Despite its seating capacity, with the stage, of over 5,000, it has almost perfect acoustic properties, so that a whisper from the stage can be heard in any portion of this great hall. Its completion in 1913 enabled the University at last to bring the great part of the students together under one roof upon such occasions as the annual convocation, the official opening of the University in the fall. The problem connected with the admission of relatives and friends of the graduating classes to the Commencement exercises, which had proved exceedingly troublesome for many years, was also at last ended; while the musical interests of Ann Arbor, particularly the annual May Festival, immediately found an opportunity for further expansion in this hall, whose advantages as a concert hall were praised by every visiting musician. The building, which is finished in tapestry brick and terra cotta, stands opposite the Natural Science Building on North University Avenue. In addition to the great auditorium, it contains offices and class rooms, a dressing-room for choruses, and a great foyer across the front of the second floor, where the Stearns collection of musical instruments, one of the finest in America, is installed. The great organ from the Chicago World's Fair is also placed in this building as a memorial to Professor Henry S. Frieze, the pioneer in Michigan's development as a musical center.

The University now has four dormitories or halls of residence for women. Two of them were completed in 1916; the Martha Cook Building on South University Avenue, given by the Cook family of Hillsdale, in memory of their mother, and the Newberry Hall of Residence on State Street, a memorial to Helen Handy Newberry, the wife of John S. Newberry, '47, given by her children. The Martha Cook Building is probably the most sumptuous and complete college dormitory in America and cost something over $500,000. It is an unusually beautiful example of Tudor Gothic, always a favorite style for college buildings. Simple in its main lines it reveals an extraordinary perfection in detail as well as comfort in its appointments and a richness in decoration which cannot but have its happy influence on the one hundred and seventeen fortunate women who live there. Less elaborate but equally attractive as a home for the seventy-five girls it is built to accommodate is the Newberry Building, which, though smaller and simpler in its architecture, embodies every essential found in the larger building. It is of hollow tile and stucco and cost about $100,000. Similar in general plan and appointments, though built of brick, is the adjacent Betsy Barbour Dormitory, which was completed in 1920, the gift of Ex-Regent Levi L. Barbour, '63, '65l, of Detroit. It stands on the site of the old ward school building on State Street, used for many years by the University as a recitation building, and soon to be razed now the new dormitory, just to the rear, is completed. Alumnae House, the fourth girls' residence hall, was, as the name implies, furnished by the alumnae of the University. It was made over from a quaint old dwelling on Washtenaw Avenue at a cost of about $18,000, and accommodates sixteen self-supporting students.

A final group of buildings, very necessary in an institution so large as the University, is composed of the heating and lighting plant, the nearby laundry in the one-time ravine at the east of the old "Cat-hole," and the University shops and storehouse a little distance south. The old power house near the Engineering Building was abandoned in 1914 when the new plant, situated on a lower level than the Campus and reached by a spur from the railroad, was ready for service. It cost approximately a third of a million dollars, and furnishes heat, compressed air, electrical energy, and hot water to the Campus and adjacent buildings through a series of tunnels nearly ten feet high which extend as far as the Union, half a mile across the Campus.

Aside from the smaller and the more temporary buildings and the many dwelling houses on property recently acquired, the buildings of the University number about forty. This does not include the buildings occupied by the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A., or the Psychopathic Hospital, the titles to which do not rest with the Board of Regents.

Though the buildings on the Campus have not, until very recently, been placed with any careful relationship to a general scheme, and exhibit a very unfortunate lack of architectural harmony, in certain features the Campus gives promise of better things in the future. Some of the buildings have real beauty, though it is too often lost in an unfavorable environment. Charming details are to be found here and there, while the green canopy of the elms and maples planted sixty years ago helps to give our academic field a real distinction. Fortunately the center of the Campus has been left comparatively free of buildings, save for the rambling old Chemistry Building, now used by the departments of Physiology and Economics, and the plain but imposing bulk of the new Library Building, a fitting center whence paths diverge in every direction to the halls and laboratories along the avenues that mark the outer confines of the Campus. Lack of funds and the imperative need of room, and yet more room, for the thousands of new students, has severely limited the Regents in the matter of adornment of the buildings erected in recent years, which have all tended to conform to one type, simple, dignified in their very rectangular bulk, and relieved only by patterns in tapestry brick and terra cotta trimmings.

Within recent years, too, the new buildings have been carefully placed, not only with reference to the present Campus, but also the inevitable northeastward growth of the University toward the hills lining the river. For some time the Regents have been acquiring scattered parcels of property as occasion presented, and now own a good share of the land in the triangle bounded roughly by Hill Auditorium, the University Hospitals and Palmer Field, an area twice as large as the present Campus. In addition there is the University Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, a large area south and east of Forest Hill Cemetery, which is now linked up by boulevards with the rapidly growing system of city parks.

A formal entrance to the Campus in the form of a double driveway, laid out in accordance with a plan prepared in 1906 by Professor Emil Lorch of the Department of Architecture, and known as the Mall, passes between the Chemistry and Natural Science Buildings. This forms practically a continuation of Ingalls Street between Hill Auditorium and a future companion, possibly a new Museum, which will eventually be built to the east on the other corner. The impressive vista thus formed leads the eye to the massive façade of the new Library, though the Campus flagstaff, some distance in front, now marks the actual end of the new driveway. The architectural emphasis of the Campus is thus being turned to the north, but the western, or State Street side still remains the accepted front, dominated by the old-fashioned but nevertheless stately bulk of old University Hall. Within a short time State Street has become, through the fortunate removal of several unsightly old survivals of earlier days, one of the most beautiful of academic avenues, flanked on one side by the Campus, with its trees, broad spaces and dignified buildings, and by a row of public buildings on the western side, which, though sadly lacking in uniformity, are yet for the most part impressive and substantial. These include the Congregational Church, the two halls of residence for women, the older Newberry Hall, a number of fraternity houses, and particularly the commanding beauty of the Michigan Union.

It is fortunate for the University and the community that the problem of the future development of the institution in relation to the city is being carefully considered. The expansion of the Campus to the north and northeast is now established, and it is probable that at some future period the Mall, lined with monumental buildings, and laid out in co-operation with the city, will extend to the river. Ann Arbor has already taken far-sighted measures in establishing a series of boulevards and parks along the river with connecting links which will eventually encircle the town. The extensive University properties in the Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, which cover the hills defining the ravine extending from the river to Geddes Avenue, and join the present enlarged University grounds at the Observatory, form part of this system. Plans are now under consideration for a rearrangement of streets, which will afford easier access from the Campus to the Hospitals and the boulevards and river drives. These will give to this portion of the future University grounds an irregularity and picturesqueness wholly lacking on the flat hilltop occupied by the present Campus. One of the difficulties in this plan is the old "Cat-hole," the end of a ravine, whose steep hillsides extend from the river practically to the northeast corner of the Campus. Though this unsightly boghole has been gradually filled in, it still forms a blot on the landscape which might, nevertheless, with a little effort and comparatively small expense, be transformed into a charming open air theater. This in fact has been recommended by Mr. Frederick Law Olmstead, the landscape architect, who has made an extensive study of the whole problem for the city and the University.

It is fortunate for the University that this plan for the future, tentative though it may be at present, is actually a part of a large scheme for the improvement of the city, suggested by Mr. Olmstead. Ann Arbor is fast becoming one of the most beautiful little cities in the country, with winding streets, shaded by noble maples and elms and many of the original forest oaks, and lined by substantial homes, charming in their simple architecture and setting. This development came at first, as was natural, largely from the Faculty, but an increasing number of families from Detroit and elsewhere have of late come to make Ann Arbor their permanent residence, attracted by the unusual beauty of the city and the advantages afforded by the University. The sightly range of hills along the Huron between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti and about the new Barton Pond, two miles to the north and west of the city, recently developed as a water-power site, are soon to be dotted here and there with comfortable and attractive country homes, which promise to change the entire character of Ann Arbor's environs. The little country town of the past is fast disappearing.

With these plans rapidly evolving there is every reason to hope that, at no distant period, the University may find an imposing physical setting more in keeping with her standing among American universities. The present is an era of transition; as yet she has hardly had time to adjust herself to the extraordinary growth of the last ten years; still less to realize all the problems it involves. But it requires no great vision to see the University of the future occupying at last the heights overlooking the Huron valley which that unfortunate decision at the first meeting of the Regents denied to her in 1837.