6D - New Student Edition - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, September 8, 1999
Wealth of structures gives A2 a rich architectural legacy
LEGACY
Continued from Page ID

Broadway, Wall, and Maiden Lane, after
those in New York City, reflecting his desires
for his business district to be the hub for a
great city.
Wineberg and Reade write that as the
University grew and the "hilitoppers" - those
who settled atop the gentle rise now capped by
downtown - gained dominance, Brown's part
of Ann Arbor slowly began to fade.
Peiper said despite some structures' reloca-
tion, many of the area's homes dating from the
1830s, especially along Wall Street, were
demolished in the past few years to make way
for University expansion.
"Some of the biggest battles have been with
the University," Peiper said.
Though preservation has been successful in
other parts of the city, University expansion
often wins.
Very little remains of Wall's streetscape, an
area where poet Robert Frost would walk
when he lived in Ann Arbor.
The remaining commercial and residential
buildings in the area are mostly Greek
Revival, common in American architecture
during the first half of the 19th Century, when
many of Lower Town's buildings were con-
structed.
As more residents settled in the Ann Arbor,
the commercial heart of the city centered on
Main Street, now an official city historic dis-
trict.
"Compared to a lot of cities, we have a lot
left downtown," Peiper said.
One main feature of the downtown area is
the Italianate-style Fireman's Hall, now home
to the Ann Arbor Children's Museum. Though
the building's tower, looming over the corner
of East Huron Street and North Fifth Avenue,
is uniaue to the area, its use of ornamented
brickwork is echoed in commercial buildings
along Main, Washington, Liberty and other
area streets.
As industry set up shop near the Toledo,
Ann Arbor and Northern Michigan railroad
tracks - the ones slicing through downtown
and the University's athletic campus - the
growing University began to dominate the east
side of the city.
The area located between the University and
downtown became home to many of the city's
finest homes in the 19th Century. What
remains today is one of Ann Arbor's most
architecturally diverse areas.
The corridor between campus and down-
town is flanked by Greek Revival and Gothic
homes north of Huron Street, surrounding a
mix of old and new residential and commer-
cial buildings along East Liberty, East
Washington and East William streets, to
Queen Anne and other styled homes to the
south.
This area is home to many official city his-
toric districts, including the Division Street,
Old Fourth Ward, Fourth/Ann and East Liberty
districts.
According to Reade and Wineman's book,
the Wilson-Wahr house, a nationally recog-
nized home in the Divsion Street district, has
been pictured in many architectural books and
:digests for its classic .Greek Revial form.
:Originally built in 1835, Probate Judge Robert
Wilson added the now-famous portico to the
:126 N. Division St. structure in 1843, adorn-
ing it with Ionic columns.
As a college town, Ann Arbor has grown
along with the University and the area on and
around the campus is now home to some of the
:city's most unique architecture.
Looking north on State Street from the
:Diag, the towering neon marquee of the State
Theater stands out as one of the city's most
notable landmarks. Guarding the intersection
of South State and East Liberty streets, the
theater,.one of the few examples of Art Deco
4rchitecture in Ann Arbor, has watched over
the busy commercial corridor since it was
built in 1940.
Moving closer to campus, the architectural
landscape changes, as University buildings
rise above the streetscape, framed by the thou-
sands of trees that have made Ann Arbor
famous.
The view out the south-facing windows of
the eight-story Graduate Library, holds the
Law Quad, Michigan Stadium and even
Briarwood Mall far off in the distance.

But straight down is the University
Preident's House, located at 815 S. University
Ave. - the only building that remains from
the Univeristy's original 40-acre campus.
Hundreds of celebrating students -
whether they appreciated the structure's
charms or not - got a chance to explore the
Classical Revival house when University
President Lee Bollinger invited them in after
the Michigan football team trampled Penn
State in 1997.
The building, which as been altered over the
years, is one of four structures originally built
for University professors to live and teach in.
According to Reade's and Wineberg's book,
tle President's House acquired its third story
and Italianate cornices in the early 1860s.
Today the house nestled between South
University Avenue, the Clements Library,
Tappan Hall, and the Graduate Library, stands
as an quiet island in the middle of Central
Campus.
The architecture of the Michigan Union,
just down the street, tells a different story
about the University.
-Students have used the building for many.

inside, eating in the Union's unfinished ball-
room.
The soldiers then could not appreciate what
students, faculty and staff today have grown to
love of the Union's interior - carved wood,
arched hallways, ornamented tile and
stonework and the blue and green tinted glass
panes of its many peaked windows.
Other buildings around campus, like the
Law Quad, Stockwell, Mosher-Jordan and
Martha Cook residence halls, contain many of
the same architectural features - many
inspired from styles found at English universi-
ties, like Oxford and Cambridge.
But it was one man, Detroit architect Albert
Kahn, who influenced the face of campus like
no other - designing more than 20 buildings
for the University.
"If you look at the history of campus archi-
tects, Albert Kahn would be on top," said Julie
Truettner, who works in the Office of the
University Architect.
Kahn's Classical Revival architecture,
which commonly uses red brick, limestone
and classical ornamentation, is found on his
buildings, like Hill Auditorium, Angell Hall,
portions of the University Hospitals, Burton
Memorial Tower, the Natural Science
Building, the Clements and Graduate libraries,
Couzens, Helen Newberry and Betsy Barbour
residence halls and West Hall (originally
named West Engineering) just to name a few.
Kahn is also one of Michigan's most famous
architects. "He made his name in industrial
architecture, certainly in Michigan, but he also
designed many homes," Truettner said.
Although many of his most notable residen-
tial commissions can be found in Detroit and
Grosse Pointe, Kahn's residential creations in
Ann Arbor include the Delta Upsilon fraterni-
ty house on Hill Street, among others.
As the city expanded, the residential areas
around campus grew into the neighborhoods
forlhose associated with the University, main-

the University.
Peiper said the Tudor Revival home of
Music Prof. Albert Lockwood, built in 1910, is
one of the most intriguing homes in Ann
Arbor.
The broad and gabled tile roof of the Oxford