Burton Memorial Tower — Attraction in Ann Arbor

In the pantheon of American collegiate architecture, few buildings embody compromise as elegantly as the Burton Memorial Tower. Rising 192 feet above Ann Arbor's central campus, this Art Deco monument represents what happens when Depression-era pragmatism meets architectural ambition—and somehow produces magic.

The tower's genesis reads like an architectural thriller. Originally, students envisioned honoring deceased President Marion LeRoy Burton with a soaring Gothic spire designed by Eliel Saarinen, the Finnish master whose second-place Tribune Tower design had revolutionized skyscraper aesthetics. But when the estimated $200,000 cost proved prohibitive during the Depression, Albert Kahn stepped in with a more practical vision.

Kahn's solution brilliantly disguised function as monument. Rather than solid masonry, he employed a reinforced concrete shell faced with limestone—a technique borrowed from his industrial work that maximized interior space while maintaining structural integrity. The result feels simultaneously ancient and modern, its stepped Art Deco profile echoing both Mayan pyramids and Manhattan's newest towers.

At 216 feet, Yale's Harkness Tower still claims bragging rights for height, but Burton's innovation lies elsewhere. Where Harkness embraces full Gothic revival fantasy, Burton Tower represents architectural honesty—its Art Deco bones reflect the machine age that created it. The limestone facade, hewn from Indiana quarries, lightens as it rises, creating an almost ethereal quality.

The controversy that shadows Burton Tower centers on its tragic postscript. After University Regent Sarah Goddard Power's 1987 suicide from the eighth floor, windows were retrofitted with safety stops—a sobering reminder that architectural beauty cannot shield against human darkness. Critics argue these modifications diminish the tower's visual integrity, though supporters counter that preserving life trumps aesthetic purity.

Cost comparisons reveal the tower's true extravagance. The original land purchase alone cost $44,657—roughly $1 million today. Conservative estimates place total 1936 construction costs around $300,000, equivalent to approximately $7 million now. But rebuilding Burton Tower today would easily exceed $25 million due to modern safety codes, ADA compliance, and the scarcity of skilled stoneworkers.

The tower's 53-bell Baird Carillon—the world's fourth-heaviest at 43 tons—transforms this architectural monument into a living instrument. Unlike purely decorative towers, Burton serves triple duty as memorial, concert hall, and academic building, housing music classrooms and faculty offices within its Art Deco walls.

Architecturally, Burton Tower occupies a unique niche. It lacks the height of true skyscrapers like Chicago's Tribune Tower (462 feet) or the Gothic grandeur of Princeton's Cleveland Tower (173 feet), yet its modest scale proves perfectly calibrated to campus life. Students can actually hear the carillon concerts from multiple vantage points—something impossible with truly tall towers.

The building's greatest triumph may be its democratic accessibility. While Harkness Tower requires special tours to reach its bells, Burton opens its observation deck to the public during concerts, though visitors must climb stairs from the eighth floor. This openness reflects both Kahn's egalitarian design philosophy and the school's public mission.

Perhaps most remarkably, Burton Tower has aged gracefully into iconic status despite its compromised origins. The 2017 LED lighting system, installed for the university's bicentennial, can transform the limestone facade into a canvas of colored light—a modernization that Saarinen's more precious design might never have accommodated.

In our era of starchitect spectacles and billion-dollar campus buildings, this ower offers a different model: architecture born from constraint that achieves grandeur through ingenuity rather than excess. It stands as proof that sometimes the building you get isn't the building you planned—but it might just be...

The Burton Memorial Tower is a clock tower located on Central Campus at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, housing a grand carillon.

The tower was built in 1936 as a memorial for University President Marion Leroy Burton (presidency: 1920–1925). This carillon is the world's fourth-heaviest, containing 53 bells and weighing a total of 43 tons and standing 58,2 m.

On April 8, 2017, in celebration of the university's bicentennial, the tower was illuminated in maize and blue, the university's colors. The carillon and spire can also be lit in other colors by the LED illumination system installed for the...

Beautiful to look at late at night, they have a schedule of songs they’ll play and you can walk in to see the bells be played!! You can take the elevator up but you’ll eventually have to walk up a flight of stairs so beware if you’re incapable of taking the steps as there is no other...