The Bentley Library Birkets Collection
University of Michigan
The Bentley Library collection entitled "Gunnar Birkerts Papers" includes over 1900 conceptual sketches by Birkerts, as well as transcripts and audio tapes of speeches, correspondence, awards, travel diaries, newspaper articles, photographs, and faculty papers. The URL for this collection will bring you to the first page of the finding aid. Then click on a building or series name to the left to bring up the description of the drawings, photos, etc.
The collection entitled "Gunnar Birkerts and Associates" includes over 10,000 drawings, 518 of which are for Lincoln Elementary School, and 997 of which are for St. Peter's Lutheran Church. What makes this collection quite extraordinary and rich is the fact that the drawings for each of the first 14 buildings span the design process, from design development to construction drawings. The finding aid describes the textual and photographic materials which are associated with each building as well. Please note that the finding aid for each of these collections includes detailed biographical information about Mr. Birkerts, and a Scope and Content Note which describes the design of the buildings and the materials in the collections.
The two links to our Bentley Library Image Bank will bring the user directly to the online photos of St. Peter's Church and Lincoln Elementary School. Among the 283 images in this collection, 14 are of St. Peter's and one is of Lincoln School.
Reference archivists Karen Jania and Malgosia Myc are available five days a week at 734-764-3482 and will glady answer questions about accessing and duplicating materials.
Links to the collections
- View the Gunnar Birkerts Papers, 1930-2002
- View the Gunnar Birkerts and Associates Records, 1960-2005
Visit the Gunnar Birkets web site >
