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Full-Text Articles in Architecture
The Quadrangle Isn't Square
About the Buildings
Many of those who visit and admire the Law Quadrangle assume that it was modelled by architects York and Sawyer on some existing complex of buildings at Oxford or Cambridge. While the Law School's buildings are in the tradition of English Gothic used at other institutions, they are unique and very much more varied in style and use of ornamental detail than is apparent to the casual observer. A recent descriptive evaluation of the Quadrangle written for an architecture class at Michigan by student Paul Weller demonstrates that the buildings are not only original designs but also "tend to represent …
'Splendor Beneath The Grass' In Michigan, Andrea Oppenheimer Dean
'Splendor Beneath The Grass' In Michigan, Andrea Oppenheimer Dean
About the Buildings
Article in the January 1983 issue of AIA Journal about the design of the University of Michigan Underground Law Library.
'Splendor Beneath The Grass' In Michigan, Andrea Oppenheimer Dean
'Splendor Beneath The Grass' In Michigan, Andrea Oppenheimer Dean
About the Buildings
This is probably the most esthetically satisfying large underground building to have penetrated American soil, though on approach there's almost nothing - arguably not enough - to see, certainly nothing that says "building". Gunnar Birkert's 1981 addition to the University of Michigan's Legal Research Building is part of the venerable 1920s Gothicized law school quadrangle, a visually homogenous complex including library, classrooms, and dormitories. The quad had, as it were, a piece missing at its southeast corner; and it is here under this missing element that Birkerts buried his building.