Building Medicine at the University of Michigan: Past and Present

Abstract

The University of Michigan Medical School (UMMS) opened its doors in 1850 and became U-M’s first professional school. The UMMS was the first medical school in the United States to own and operate its own hospital, among the first major medical schools to admit women, the first major medical school to teach science-based medicine, and the first medical school to introduce the modern medical curriculum and the first clinical clerkships. The storied history of medicine at the University of Michigan has been told through books and pictures. This poster aims tell the story as an architectural history. Throughout time, people have used visual devices to capture stories. Architecture forms a visual, spatial link between the past, present, and future, becoming a point in the timeline of a place. In this poster we have chosen to tell the story of medicine at the University of Michigan through the many buildings that connect to it’s past, present and future. To obtain images of the older buildings that tell the story of the past we searched the Bentley Historical Library that serves as the official archives of the University. After selecting the pictures to include in the poster we found the locations on the campus on which those buildings stood and photographed the buildings that are now there. By juxtaposing the images of buildings from the past with those of the present in this poster we are, we believe that we are telling the story of medicine at U-M in a way that has never been done previously.