Law Quad offers tranquil refuge from life's anxieties

Michigan Stadium's 102,501 seats have been filled for every home game since 1975, and last Saturday's contest with archrival Notre Dame was no exception. All the better for the handful of people who spent the afternoon in the Law Quad courtyard instead, enjoying the warm and mild weather.

Some studied, leaning over thick textbooks and papers. Some strolled along the walkways or sat on stone benches astride the arched entrances. A few reclined and dozed on the lawn. There were no marching band choruses, no shirtless or painted fanatics - the only sign of football was the distant Goodyear Blimp, barely visible between the slender steeples of Hutchins Hall and the Legal Research Building roof.

DANIEL CASTLE/Daily The Law Quad buildings attract many visitors who find comfort in the beauty of the structures. Much of the architecture is modeled after England's Oxford University.

Among the people who had come to the elegant confines of the Law Quad for their Saturday afternoon, relatively few were actual Law students - in fact, some were not even students. The Quad had attracted out-of-town admirers unaffiliated with the University. Meanwhile, the neighboring Business School campus was all but deserted and the Angell Hall Fishbowl looked as if tumbleweed would blow through it at any moment. Even the Diag itself was relatively empty.

Why did they choose to spend the afternoon in the Law Quad?

"Just because it's really peaceful here, and really beautiful," said Lona Stoll, an LSA first-year student. Stoll lay on a pastel blanket that she moved from the shade of a towering oak tree to read "The Odyssey" in direct sunlight.

"It's cool, just because of the way it's designed. It kind of blocks out the rest of the University," she said, looking around at the adjacent buildings that enclose the Quad. Smiling, Stoll surmised, "This is the first place the tour goes to see U of M."

Fernando Fuentes said he takes his own tours. He took a break during his Saturday stroll to sit on a bench near the Hutchins Hall facade, reading a Spanish newspaper. The Rochester Hills engineer said he makes it to Ann Arbor regularly when the weather is pleasant.

"I don't come here to see the football games," Fuentes said. "I just come to relax, have a cup of coffee, walk through the University." The Law Quad, he explained, reminds him of European schools such as Oxford (the most apparent inspiration for the Quad's design). Fuentes added that he even likes the contrast between the original Law Library and its contemporary underground addition.

Herb Johe, Professor Emeritus with the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, concurred. "The real decision was, when they needed a new facility for the library, was to put it underground, " Johe said from his Ann Arbor home Sunday.

He had high praise for the designer of the addition, saying, "I think it was a great decision that he made, to put it underground. He did not spoil, or interfere with the building."

Johe said the Law Quad's allure is all in its design.

"I think it's - the original semblance of buildings - is a great architectural structure," he said.

"I think the design is kind of a closed campus. Sometimes students toss the football out there, make a little noise," Johe said. But, he continued, the Quad is generally a tranquil corner of campus.

Sure enough, a group of students trotted out of a residence hall to throw a ball across the courtyard and over the heads of readers, providing a small dose of game-day atmosphere.

Smiling wryly, first-year Law student Ivan Smallwood said he was "taking a break from the crappy game" to smoke and survey the courtyard. Moments later, he joined a loose circle of fellows to play catch, hastily unhanding his cigarette to receive an incoming throw.

Nearby, Janie Cinzori said she wasn't terribly disappointed to be missing the game, which was about to end. Cinzori, a fifth-year student at Michigan State's College of Arts and Letters, was waiting to meet her boyfriend, a Michigan graduate, after he returned from the stadium.

"I would like to go if I had tickets," she said, but added that it was no great sacrifice to work on her graphic design assignment in the Quad. "I think it's beautiful here, so I said, 'Oh, that's O.K, you go to the football game.'"

For Cinzori, it was easy to decide where to spend the afternoon; high school friends had told her about the Quad for years before coming here. "I had friends that I graduated with, and they always wanted me to come here. It was like, 'You've got to see the Law Quad!'"

As the afternoon sunlight faded and evening approached, the trees' shadows in the courtyard stretched longer and longer across the lawn. The Law Quad was still placid, but the game was about over - the entire area would soon be flooded with the capacity crowd, most of them fans of the home team, celebrating the narrow victory.

People in the Quad began to gather their belongings as patches of sun become difficult to find. The courtyard grew dark well before sunset - a result of its enclosed structure - and, by the time post-game traffic permeated the courtyard, precious few of the afternoon visitors remained. A few squirrels darted around, scrambling up the tree trunks, the outdoor dome lights turned on, and the courtyard sat, nearly empty, having spent the afternoon with its own fans.

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