URBANA - 2 : USA - IL

*Location:

   McFarland Memorial Bell Tower
   University of Illinois
   South Quad
   Urbana, Illinois, USA
   LL: N 40.1028, W 88.2269

Site locator map  or 
As of March 2010, this new tower is not yet on Google or Bing overhead photography, nor on Bing birdseye.
Also see our own Map Use Hints.

*Contact:

   University of Illinois
   Urbana, IL  61801

*Schedule:

   (unknown)

*Remarks:

   Construction of the 185-foot tower
   began in July 2008; bells were installed
   in early October.  Addition of a baton
   keyboard seems potentially possible.

*Technical data:

   Electric-automatic carillon of 48 bells
   Pitch of heaviest bell is unknown
   Transposition is unknown
   Keyboard range:     ----  /    ----  
   The whole instrument was installed in 2008
     with bells made by an unknown maker
   Year of latest technical information source is 2008

*Links:

An extract from the Design Brochure for the tower includes a tower drawing, ground-level floor plan, site plan, and campus map location.

Photo record of construction
Photos as of 17 Sep 2008

News story on the donor of the tower; with photo of completed (but bell-less) concrete shell of tower w/interior cross-braces

Clickable photo of one frame of bells ready to be hoisted into the new tower

Blog with photos of bells in place, with one clickable closeup

Photo of Sauron's eye on tower?

Where this work lies in the sequence of output of unknown bellfoundries, in this region and in the world.

Ranking among all North American non-traditional carillons by pitch (weight).
Ranking among all North American non-traditional carillons by size (number of bells).
Ranking among all North American non-traditional carillons by year of completion.

Index to all tower bell instruments in IL.

*Status:

   This page was built from the database on 20-Nov-08
   based on textual data last updated on 2008/10/10
   and on technical data last updated on 2008/11/13

Explanations of page format and keyboard range are available.

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