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June 17, 2011.
Wisconsin State Capitol Building; completed in 1917, the building houses both chambers of the Wisconsin legislature along with the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the Office of the Governor.
Built in 1930 and expanded in 1938 and 1959, this Art Deco-style 11-story office building was designed by Arthur Peabody to house various government offices for the State of Wisconsin. The building’s north wing was constructed first, with the central wing being completed in 1938-1939, utilizing funds from the New Deal-era Public Works Administration (PWA), and the south wing in 1956-1959. Despite the long time span from the building’s origins to its completion, very few of the decorative details were changed and remained remarkably consistent despite the rise of the modernist movement and the Art Deco style falling out of favor by the time the south wing was completed, which in most circumstances led to buildings with portions that did not match the original vision. The building was apparently despised by Frank Lloyd Wright, whom called it a “monstrosity to anyone who thinks” and went on to call the City of Madison a “provincial capitol” that was “neither scholarly or gentlemanly.” Nevertheless, the building is a popular and generally well-liked building by the citizens of Madison. The building is the tallest office building in Downtown Madison, owing to its location close to Lake Monona, which includes a two-story podium that has a parking area on the roof, and the building sits right at the 187-foot height limit imposed throughout Downtown Madison to not block views of the State Capitol dome.
The building is faced with gray granite blocks and is E-shaped, with a tall 11-story tower in the center flanked by two wings of six and seven stories that are at equal height, with the adjacent street sloping downwards along the width of the building’s facade. The stone blocks are mostly unadorned, but the building’s east and west wings feature intricately carved reliefs on the spandrel between the first and second floors, in the spandrel between the fourth and fifth floor, in a ribbon on the sixth floor between window openings, and on the parapet, with additional decorative reliefs over the entrance doors and decorative pilasters with acroterions at the top that run between the paired windows on the second, third, and fourth floors. The eleven-story central wing features a band of decorative carved reliefs at the spandrel between the second and third floors, at the spandrel between the sixth and seventh floors, at the spandrel between the eighth and ninth floors, between window openings on the tenth floor, and around the top of the parapet on the tower and on the penthouse, with decorative Egyptian-inspired columns flanking the front entrance, and pilasters between paired windows on the third through eighth floors that terminate at acroterions on the ninth floor. The tower tapers at the eleventh floor to a narrower parapet, with the windows arranged in pairs at recessed portions of the facade that align with the smaller parapet above rather than the larger structure below. The building’s entrance doors are made of bronze with bronze Art Deco-style sconces on the east and west wings and an art deco chandelier at the main entrance at the base of the tower. The main entrance in the tower features a large transom with decorative bronze trim and a carved decorative stone trim surround, decorative lamppost fixtures flanking the window bays on either side of the doorway, featuring shields with the state motto, “Forward,” emblazoned on them, and is somewhat repeated on the west wing, though simplified, with the original entrance in the east wing being the smallest of the three entrances, with only a pair of doors in an unadorned recessed opening The windows on the “shaft” portion of the building’s design composition often feature recessed black-painted spandrel panels, with the windows at the top and bottom not including this feature. The decorative trim work continues around the side of the building and onto the rear facade facing Lake Monona, but is absent from the two light wells that flank the central tower, where portions of the facade are instead faced with buff brick, though still featuring the same fenestration pattern. The two wings also feature recessed penthouses faced in buff brick, with the east wing’s penthouse being added with the 1938-1939 construction of the tower wing and being smaller than the penthouse atop the later west wing.
The interior of the building is mostly modernized and relatively unremarkable office space that has been modified in multiple renovations. However, the main lobby features beautiful and colorful terrazzo floors, multi-colored marble wall cladding, bronze railings, fixtures, doors, and trim, decorative trim on the ceiling, including shell and floral motifs, and geometric chevron motifs. The space has been extensively described in publications and articles, but it appears that no images of it exist or are available, which sadly makes this treasure something that the public is unable to enjoy or appreciate. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, and today houses the offices for multiple departments of the State of Wisconsin. The building has undergone renovations and restorations in the past four decades, which have retained its beautiful exterior and most notable interior spaces, while allowing it to meet the needs of the state’s office workers.
Kevin drives us back to his apartment after leaving the Safehouse. It was well after midnight and so officially Kevin's birthday. We sang him a round of Happy Birthday, which he said was the best rendition he's ever received.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Built in 1964-1965, this International Style Modern office building has surprisingly little information available about it. The building replaced the historic Vilas mansion, home to several notable early and prominent citizens of Madison, and a favorite building of Frank Lloyd Wright. The demolition of the mansion and construction of this building catalyzed the creation of the historic preservation movement in Madison and the state of Wisconsin, as it was massively out of scale with the surrounding buildings and the loss of a historical landmark as significant as the Vilas House made many in the community realize the need to protect the city’s historic resources. The building features a glass curtain wall, seemingly inspired by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, sandwiched between a parapet and floor structure clad in metal panels with a trapezoid geometric motif at the top and bottom, which is seemingly inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, a recessed first floor with Le Corbusier-inspired pilotis, or exposed columns, around the perimeter of the floor, framing storefronts, and clad in stone panels, a penthouse with an oversized cap, exposed columns, and stone panel cladding, a low-slope roof, and a large lawn to the side and rear, which conceals the building’s underground parking garage. The building, despite being a quite excellent example of mid-20th Century modern architecture, is a noncontributing structure in the Mansion Hill Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. The building’s architecture seems to have escaped notice by the local architectural historian and history groups despite being a quite well-designed International Style building.
Originally constructed as a Queen Anne-style house circa 1885, this building was expanded and converted into a Streamline Moderne or Art Moderne-style structure by architect Lawrence Monberg in 1945-1946 to house the medical practice of the Quisling Brothers, whom were doctors. The building is one of three notable Art Moderne-style buildings designed by Monberg for the Quisling family, whom were prominent physicians of Norwegian descent in Madison during the mid-20th Century. The building has been expanded several times with additions that match the original materials and forms of the building, but lack much of the same ornament and details found on the original section of the building. The clinic opened at the location in 1935 in the former house, and enclosed the house’s front porch and modified the interior to house offices. The style of the building evokes the “ocean liner” ships and “stream liner” trains of the era.
The building features buff brick cladding, long ribbons of windows with orange brick panels between them, stone fins that accentuate the building’s horizontality, with the second-floor windows on the front facade being narrower than those on the first floor. The building’s corners are rounded, softening the appearance of the structure, which is echoed in the “porthole” circular window next to the entrance door, decorative oversized aluminum handles at the original front entrance, which sits below a curved concrete canopy with circular openings, a curved corner, and aluminum lettering spelling “Quisling Terrace” atop the canopy, with a quarter-circle stoop and steps below. The front of the building includes light wells for the basement and brick planters, which echo the appearance of the rest of the building. The main massing of the original building is two stories in height with a smaller and deeply setback third floor with curved corners and few windows, with the entire building capped with a low parapet and low-slope roof. An addition built in 1964 to the southeast of the building is taller than the original structure, standing five stories tall, and matching the buff brick cladding and curved corners of the original building on the front, but with simpler details, with less complex canopies, less variety of trim, and a boxier overall form, which seems to mimic the nearby Edgewater Hotel and Quisling Towers. The addition has been heavily modified with window openings enlarged and metal railings added to create balconies for the apartment units that now occupy the building. The interior of the building has been fully modernized and renovated, leaving very few historic character-defining features, but has allowed for full preservation of the exterior of the building.
The building is a contributing structure in the Mansion Hill Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. In 1998, after the Quisling Clinic had closed, the building was threatened by demolition for a new building, but was saved by a local developer, whom converted the clinic in a historic preservation adaptive reuse project into affordable housing for people making below area median income. The renovation fully reconfigured and altered the interior, which had been renovated multiple times since the 1940s, and enlarged window openings on the rear and side facades to add small balconies outside many of the apartment units. The building today remains in use as an apartment building, known as Quisling Terrace, after the family that built the building.
Good Food Garden Party
Community Groundworks
Madison, Wisconsin
September 12, 2015
Photos by Emma Cassidy, eaCas.com
The Battleship Wisconsin was built in Philadelphia and launched on December 7, 1943, two years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. During her career she saw action during World War II, Korea and in Operation Desert Storm. She was decommissioned for the final time in September 1991 and today sits as a floating museum on the waterfront in Norfolk, Virginia. The Battleship Wisconsin (BB-64) was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. (12000178)
Wisconsin Wildlife, www.monicahallphotography.com copyright Monica Hall Photography/ Monica Hall Living Life Photography