ANN ARBOR, MI — A new high-rise catering to University of Michigan students in downtown Ann Arbor recently welcomed its firsts tenants just in time for the school year.
The Standard, as Main Street’s newest building is called, includes over 200 apartments with over 400 beds, plus ground-floor commercial space not yet finished.
Rising from five to 10 stories as it stretches a full block between Packard and William streets, it also includes one feature not so standard for new downtown high-rises: a huge mural the developer commissioned a Detroit-area artist to create.
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Located at the south end of the building off Packard Street and facing the residential neighborhood to the east, the new artwork stands 36 feet tall and stretches 24 feet wide.
The Standard apartment high-rise in downtown Ann Arbor on Sept. 18, 2022, featuring a large mural titled "The Glass Beads" by Highland Park artist Mike Ross.Ryan Stanton | The Ann Arbor News
Painted by artist Mike Ross of 333 Midland Studios in Highland Park, it’s titled “The Glass Beads” and shows what look like marbles nestled in round grooves juxtaposed to the rectangular windows spanning from floors three to five and complementing the blue-panel facade below.
The colorful mural’s title is a reference to German-Swiss author Hermann Hesse’s final 1943 novel “The Glass Bead Game,” Ross says of the artwork on his website.
That makes it at least the second Ann Arbor mural to reference Hesse, since “The Bookstore Mural” on Liberty Street near State Street, painted in 1984 by artist Richard Wolk, also features the author’s likeness among four other famous writers.
The Standard apartment high-rise in downtown Ann Arbor on Sept. 18, 2022, featuring a large mural titled "The Glass Beads" by Highland Park artist Mike Ross.Ryan Stanton | The Ann Arbor News
“My work has everything to do with perception and the way we understand and recognize the world and ourselves within it, and the ways in which how we understand the world affect the way we see it and the way we see ourselves. Basically, how the world changes according to our perception,” Ross says on his website. “These ideas bounce back and forth a lot. The patterns they make as they do so can become confusing. Part of my work lies in organizing this confusion, and sometimes adding to it as well.”
Ross studied art and anthropology at Oakland University, graduating in 2003, and has been painting out of 333 Midland Studios in Highland Park since 2014.
His murals can be found in cities across Michigan, including Detroit, Ferndale, Lansing and beyond, and internationally, with one in Santiago, Chile. See more of his work.
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