Your gaze meets a 192-foot memorial shaft rising over 230 North Ingalls Street on Central Campus. Built as a memorial for University President Marion Leroy Burton, whose presidency spanned 1920–1925, the monument was constructed in 1935 and finished in 1936. It rises 192 feet, the floor of the bell chamber sitting 120 feet above the ground.
At its top sits the Baird Carillon — the world’s fourth-heaviest carillon — 53 bells weighing a total of 43 tons, which chimes the Westminster Quarters every quarter hour in the key of E-flat. The tower is not only a musical landmark but a working high-rise: it contains classrooms and houses education offices for the University of Michigan. Notice the architecture — an interesting mixture of Art Deco and art moderne — a reinforced concrete shell faced with limestone laid out on a 42-foot (13 m) square plan.
The design was greatly influenced by Eliel Saarinen, who had submitted an earlier scheme. Listen for the quarter hour peal and feel the scale of this 1936 memorial as you stand here. Listen for the Westminster Quarters chiming from the Baird Carillon, 120 feet above the ground.