Development On Higher Ground

Nearly a decade after severe flooding inundated the University of Iowa’s campus, its music department is reunited in a new building by LMN Architects that is both a technological and civic asset.

- Anna Fixsen

In June 2008, following weeks of relentless rainfall, rivers across eastern Iowa rushed over their banks. The floodwaters engulfed farmland, roadways, and towns. The deluge, one of the worst natural disasters in the state’s history, also submerged portions of the University of Iowa campus in Iowa City, leaving the school’s arts facilities submerged in a lake of brown water.

What followed was a nearly decade long, FEMA-backed, $743 million recovery effort; in the interim, various university departments were scattered across campus in dozens of ad hoc locations. “My naive impression was that they were going to dry it out, throw some bleach around, and be good to go,” recalls David Gier, the director of the university’s School of Music. Instead, due to irreparable damage, the music department was forced to occupy spaces ranging from a re-purposed movie theater to a Sunday school classroom.