Old United States Post Office and Federal Courthouse, Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, Madison, WI
Built in 1927-1929, this Classical Revival-style building was designed by James A. Wetmore to serve as the United States Post Office and Federal Courthouse for the city of Madison, Wisconsin, though it today serves as an annex to Madison City Hall, known as the Madison Municipal Building. The building replaced an earlier structure from 1867 that served as a US District Courthouse and the city’s main Post Office. In the 1980s, the post office and US District Courts moved out of the building, with the building subsequently becoming the Madison Municipal Building, home to offices for the city of Madison. The building is rectangular at the base, becoming U-shaped on the second and third floors, and clad in limestone with rustication on the first floor, casement and double-hung windows, entrance doors with transoms featuring decorative metal screens, decorative lampposts outside the entrance doors, an ionic colonnade in the central bays of the second and third floors of the front facade, flanked by doric pilasters, with metal spandrel panels between the windows and an architrave and cornice with dentils above, colonnades with doric pilasters rather than ionic columns on the side facades, arched windows at the outer bays of the second floor with decorative keynotes, reliefs with festoons below the third floor windows of the outer bays, and a parapet with balustrades above the windows in the central bays enclosing the building’s low-slope roof. The interior includes former courtrooms with wooden paneling and ceilings with wooden beams, original staircases, the original lobby with a coffered ceiling, decorative chandeliers, and quarry tile floor, and fully modernized office space, service areas, systems, and meeting rooms. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002, and presently houses offices and meeting rooms for the government of the City of Madison, supplementing Madison City Hall across the street.
Old United States Post Office and Federal Courthouse, Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, Madison, WI
Built in 1927-1929, this Classical Revival-style building was designed by James A. Wetmore to serve as the United States Post Office and Federal Courthouse for the city of Madison, Wisconsin, though it today serves as an annex to Madison City Hall, known as the Madison Municipal Building. The building replaced an earlier structure from 1867 that served as a US District Courthouse and the city’s main Post Office. In the 1980s, the post office and US District Courts moved out of the building, with the building subsequently becoming the Madison Municipal Building, home to offices for the city of Madison. The building is rectangular at the base, becoming U-shaped on the second and third floors, and clad in limestone with rustication on the first floor, casement and double-hung windows, entrance doors with transoms featuring decorative metal screens, decorative lampposts outside the entrance doors, an ionic colonnade in the central bays of the second and third floors of the front facade, flanked by doric pilasters, with metal spandrel panels between the windows and an architrave and cornice with dentils above, colonnades with doric pilasters rather than ionic columns on the side facades, arched windows at the outer bays of the second floor with decorative keynotes, reliefs with festoons below the third floor windows of the outer bays, and a parapet with balustrades above the windows in the central bays enclosing the building’s low-slope roof. The interior includes former courtrooms with wooden paneling and ceilings with wooden beams, original staircases, the original lobby with a coffered ceiling, decorative chandeliers, and quarry tile floor, and fully modernized office space, service areas, systems, and meeting rooms. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002, and presently houses offices and meeting rooms for the government of the City of Madison, supplementing Madison City Hall across the street.