Kahn arranged all classrooms and offices on either side of a central corridor spine (known as a "double-loaded corridor.") [3] This elongated arrangement allowed for each room to have windows on at least one side, enabling proper ventilation (at a time before air-conditioning) and exposure to direct sunlight, two factors which were strongly touted at the time for good health. Departments occupied discrete stories within each wing creating some insulation amongst academic units. According to the official history of the UM: "The general plan of the building provided for a grouping of departments so that, in the words of Dean John R. Effinger, ‘…each department may develop its own spirit’, with those having common interests adjacent to each other." This desire for some separation so that an individual department could "develop its own spirit" reflected academia’s trend during the 1920s toward scholarship within subject specialties, contrary to the current preference for interdisciplinary activities.

Kahn clearly aimed to have Angell Hall’s simple classicism impress the viewer in a way that the inexpert Classical/Second Empire melange of old University Hall could not (Illustration 4). Angell’s classical styling of the main portico ties in with that of Alumni Hall (Donaldson & Meier, architects, 1910) next door (Illustration 5), which featured a projecting porch of its own and Ionic columns. Angell Hall's fluted Doric (Illustration 6) columns positioned in antis support a massive entablature, complete with triglyphs, metopes, and medallions, and an attic, which bears an inscription derived from the Ordinance of 1787, a quotation previously emblazoned on the walls of the auditorium of the old University Hall. Delicate antefixae trim the parapet of the portico. The tightly grouped pilasters along the front façade also have Doric capitals and support a heavy entablature without the additional attic story of the central portico. As at the Clements Library, designed contemporaneously, Kahn fashioned all of these features out of Indiana limestone, a material symbolic of permanence and authority.