University Of Michigan Central Campus Historic District

About this property

The University of Michigan Central Campus Historic District is a historic district consisting of a group of major buildings on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The Ann Arbor Land Company gifted the fledgling University of Michigan forty acres of land at this spot in the late 1830s. The university accepted, and in 1840, the first four buildings, residences for faculty, were constructed. A dormitory/classroom building was soon added, and classes began on campus in 1841. In 1852, the university's first president, Henry Philip Tappan, moved into one of the faculty houses, and it as served as the President's House ever since. More buildings were added to the campus, including the 1856 Chemistry Building, and by 1871 the university was one of the largest in the country. More buildings were added in the late 1800s, under president James Burrill Angell. In 1901, construction began on the West Engineering Building, the first campus building designed by Albert Kahn (in this case in partnership with George D. Mason). Kahn would go on to design ten significant structures on the university's central campus, primarily under the stewardship of William L. Clements as chair of the university's Buildings and Grounds Committee. A substantial number of buildings were added to the university in the 1910s and 1920s. The onset of the Great Depression slowed the pace of growth, and the last two architecturally significant structures, the Burton Memorial Tower and the Rackham building, were added in the late 1930s. The University of Michigan Central Campus Historic District contains nearly thirty significant buildings. These buildings were constructed over a range of dates, with the first, the President's House, constructed in 1840. Fully ten of the buildings were designed by Albert Kahn, who was University Supervising Architect from 1920 to 1925. Other architectural firms such as Smith, Hinchman and Grylls, Spier and Rohns, and Donaldson and Meier also designed buildings on campus. The center of the campus is defined by The Diag, a central open space about which many of the buildings are arranged. President's House (1840): Originally a Greek Revival building, and one of the first structures built at the university, the house was added onto numerous times. The Italianate form it currently has was created during an 1860s renovation. The four corner chimneys and Doric front portico show the original design. Economics Building (Old Chemistry) (1856): Designed by A. H. Jordan of Detroit, this is a two-story brick Italianate building. It was significantly altered over the years, and eventually had a combination hipped and gabled roof with a dentilated cornice, and a central entrance with a metal hood. The building was destroyed by fire on Christmas Eve, 1981.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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