Upon entering the University of Michigan Law Quad, one is immediately surrounded by striking Gothic-style architecture. The buildings that form the law quadrangle include the Lawyers Club, the Legal Research building, Hutchins Hall, and the most noteworthy, the Allan F. and Alene Smith Library, regarded as an architectural tour de force and one of the world’s best law libraries.
Noted for its 1920s-era Gothic-style building’s exterior modeled after English colleges like Oxford and Cambridge, the Law Quad has seen a couple of renovation projects in the past decade. In 2013, the U-M Lawyers Club, a residence hall exclusively available to law students, received a $39 million renovation that gutted the building’s interior while retaining its historical exterior.
For tips on how to create better architecture images, go to my post 10 Helpful Tips for Striking Architectural Photography.
The Lawyers Club was the first completed building on the Law Quad. It was followed by a dormitory addition in 1930, the Legal Research Building in 1931 and Hutchins Hall in 1933. The Law Quad expanded in 2009 with a $102 million expansion that included the construction of a 100,000-square-foot building. The building, referred to as South Hall, was constructed in a similar architectural style as the rest of the Law Quad. (source)
I spent an hour or two set up on my tripod shooting dusk in the law quad. The image below unfolded just as the sun was setting and only lasted for about 10 minutes. Hundreds, if not thousands of crows starting flocking into the trees on the quad. They would briefly perch on the branches before flying overhead only to be replaced by a new murder of crow. I can only speculate but it seems like the crows enjoyed watching the sun set from the quad as much as I did.
For more on shooting Nightscapes, view my post 5 Reasons to Start Shooting Night Photography.
If you like Gothic architecture, check out my post Scottish Rite Cathedral | Architecture of Indianapolis for another example of some of the finest Neo-Gothic architecture in the country.
