An Article by Sarah Sala Featured in the October 2006 Issue of Chill Magazine

Head North to the Hidden Valley
by Sarah Sala


It’s welcome week. My housemates and I realize we are going to graduate this year and there are so many things we haven’t done yet. North Campus makes it into the conversation and we discover that none of us have ventured up there before. Somehow, I am the one voted to enroll in an art class and check it out.

I figure, hey, a bus schedule isn’t that hard to figure out, right?

Stepping down from said bus, the straggling future engineers give way to beautiful art students carrying space age cases of acrylics, drafting tubes slung across their backs. I have only seen a few of these wonders by themselves on Central before, but here, all in one place? It was like coming over a rise and seeing into the hidden valley of the dinosaurs. Their eyes were either pointed up in space, for sure conjuring up their next masterpieces or fixed to the ground in what seemed like a manic determination not to see or be seen.

No more than a few minutes later I found the Duderstat Building and was immediately convinced there is no other structure like it on campus. Banner after banner of fabric hung down from an arced corridor that seemingly stretched on for a full city block. Then appeared a glass-encased art gallery open to the public and whatttt?! The students in this magnificent land didn’t take the stairs to class like mere central campus mortals—but instead, were provided with a by-way of zigzagging escalators.

Rising higher and higher into that empty belly of architectural prowess, it became apparent that not only are there poker nights and concerts, poetry readings and bowling allies, football clubs and video game tournaments in this hidden valley, but even free pool lessons.

Okay, so maybe I won’t be able to convince you to visit North Campus after 11p.m. But it offers a pretty cool way to spend the brighter half of a Saturday. There’s a wave field on the Southeast side of the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Building made by Maya Lin (who also designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in D.C. and the Civil Rights Memorial in Alabama) that my roommates and I might actually check out someday.
Because, hey, a field of waves beats the dead soggy grass by the Diag.

Check out all the North Campus events: http://www.umich.edu/~uuap/art.html.