Law Commons^™

'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.