View allAll Photos Tagged Wisconsin
By Nancy Gezella
Located near ED116
The artist's childhood vacations were Wisconsin road trips. Mixed media on handmade paper.
Fond du Lac County. Photo by S Bahnsen, May 2014.
Part of the Post Mark Collectors Club (PMCC) collection.
The countryside of Wisconsin is among the most beautiful I have ever seen. It's rolling hills cast shadows in all directions making for a beauty bordering on spiritual.
Photo by Stick People Productions.
Built in phases between 1911 and 1959, this Prairie and Organic Modern-style house and office were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright to serve as his family residence and studio, with two fires leading to substantial reconstruction of the house in 1914 and 1925. The house, which is named “Taliesin”, Welsh for “Shining Brow” or “Radiant Brow”, referring to the hill upon which it is situated, is a long and rambling structure with multiple sections built at different times, with the building serving as a living laboratory for Wright’s organic design philosophy, as well as growing with Wright’s family, wealth, and business. The house sits on a hill surrounded by fields, but is notably located below the top of the hill, which Wright saw as being such a significant feature of the landscape that it should remain untouched by the house’s presence. The house’s westernmost wings served as the home of livestock and farm equipment, as well as a garage, later becoming housing for the Taliesin Fellowship, where aspiring architects apprenticed with Frank Lloyd Wright. The central wing served as the Frank Lloyd Wright studio, where Wright and his apprentices and employees worked on projects for clients, as well as where Wright often met with clients. The eastern wing served as the Wright family’s residence, and was rebuilt twice, in 1914 and 1925, after being destroyed by fire, and is overall the newest section of the complex, though some portions of the west and central wings were added after the main phase of construction of the residence was complete.
The house is clad in stucco with a wooden shingle hipped and gabled roof, with stone cladding at the base and on piers that often flank window openings, large casement windows, clerestory windows, outdoor terraces and balconies, stone chimneys, and glass french doors, all of which connect the interior of the building to the surrounding landscape. The interior of the buildings feature vaulted ceilings in common areas, stone floors, stone and plaster walls, decorative woodwork, custom-built furniture, and multiple decorative objects collected by Wright during his life. The exterior of the house has a few areas distinctive from the rest of the structure, with a cantilevered balcony extending off the east facade drawing the eye towards the surrounding landscape from the living room of the residence, next to a large set of glass doors that enclose the living room and adjacent bedroom from a shallower cantilevered terrace, while to the west of the residence, and south of the central wing, is a landscaped garden, which rests just below the crest of the hill.
The building was the full-time home of Wright from 1911 until 1937, when Wright began to spend his winters at Taliesin West in Phoenix, Arizona, due to the effects of the Wisconsin winters on his health. For the rest of Wright’s life, the house was the summer home of Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship, and following his death, the house was deeded to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, which operated and maintained the house as a museum and the home of multiple programs until 1990. Since 1990, the house has been under the stewardship of the nonprofit Taliesin Preservation Inc., which operates the house in conjunction with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. The building is a contributing structure in the Taliesin Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976. Taliesin was one of eight Frank Lloyd Wright buildings listed as The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2019. Today, Taliesin is utilized as a museum, offering tours and interpretation of Frank Lloyd Wright’s life and work.
Built in 1923-1925, this Classical Revival-style building was designed by J. H. Findorff and Son to house the main Masonic Temple of the city of Madison. The building is faced with limestone with a boxy massing, taking inspiration from the earlier Greek Revival style, with a doric portico featuring massive fluted doric columns that taper towards the capitals and flanked by doric pilasters and decorative urns that feature doric fluted column bases and pilasters that taper towards the base, a cornice, a parapet with stepped sections enclosing a low-slope roofs, the words “Temple of Freemasons” carved into the parapet over the entrance, an architrave with the words “Let There Be Light” carved into it over the portico, one-over-one windows with recessed metal spandrel panels on the second and third floors, entrance doors with decorative headers featuring acroterions, doors with transoms and roman lattice motif screens, belt coursing with Greek Key motif, recessed panels at bays on the side facade facing Johnson Street, a large rear wing housing a massive interior hall that is faced with pilasters on the Johnson Street facade, and buff brick cladding on the side and rear facades that face the interior of the block. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990, and remains in use as the Wisconsin Masonic Center, though today, it serves as an event venue, as well as housing offices and chambers for the freemasons.
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.
Intersection of Wisconsin St & Partridge St in Eagle, Wisconsin. Wisconsin and Southern railroad tracks cross Partridge here.
These images were made during a journey down Rustic Road 58 in Oneida County on June 20, 2017.
R-58 skirts scenic Northwoods’ lakes while wandering through thick pine and hardwood forests. This route crosses a railroad bed used in the 1800s as a main line to Minocqua. It has been converted to the Bearskin State Trail for hiking and bicycling. This route intersects with the Tomahawk River and two small creeks, through cedar lowlands and dense pine and hardwood forests.
Wisconsin's Rustic Roads system was created to preserve many of the state's scenic, lightly traveled country roads. Features of Rustic Roads include rugged terrain, native vegetation and wildlife, or open areas with agricultural vistas.
Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved.
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)