Architecture book spotlights Milwaukee City Hall
A new book on architecturally significant American city halls casts a fond gaze on Milwaukee’s seat of government.
In “City Hall” (Schiffer Publishing, publishing Jan. 28), photographer and writer Arthur Drooker profiles 15 civic centers, from New York’s Federal-style hall (1812) to Las Vegas’ solar-powered building (2012).
Drooker titles his chapter on Milwaukee City Hall “The Rathaus,” after the name of Hamburg’s city hall in Germany. “Both buildings feature a signature tower, curved gables and sculptural details,” he writes.
He describes the Milwaukee building, completed in 1895, as Flemish Renaissance Revival. Designed by architect Henry C. Koch, it cost slightly more than $1 million. Made of granite, brick and terra cotta, it rises to 393 feet at the top of the flagpole in the tower. Drooker reelaborate ports it was was the third-tallest building in the United States when it opened, and remained Milwaukee’s tallest building until 1973.
He quotes contemporary Milwaukee City Clerk Jim Owczarski:
“This was architecture as display. This was architecture that was intended to be more than functional. We could have easily built a square brownstone building, but these folks wanted much more than that.”
Drooker’s photos of Milwaukee City Hall include a close-up of “Solomon Juneau,” its giant bell named after the Milwaukee founder and first mayor. Cast from from old church and firehouse bells, it weighs more than 22,000 pounds. Repairing the bell tower was a major element in a $76 million renovation of the hall completed in 2008.
Drooker also turns his camera on the atrium, rare for its time, and on a stained-glass window in the city council anteroom, which incorporates an exterior image of City Hall — it was created during the Great Depression as part of a Works Progress Administration project.
In his introduction to the book, Drooker writes that several mayors he interviewed referred to city halls as “the people’s house.” In an accompanying essay by Thomas Mellins, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett elaborates:
“City government is ‘gritty.’ That’s not a positive word. That’s not a negative word. It’s a descriptive word. … Because at the federal level, you’re flying at about 35,000 feet; at the state level, you’re flying at maybe 4,000 or 5,000 feet; at the local level, there are times when, literally, you’re in the trenches. So this (level of government) is the closest to the ground and the most relevant to people’s daily lives.”
Contact Jim Higgins at jim.higgins @jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @jhiggy.