Madison – ALL I NEED IS MY PASSPORT

Wisconsin Historical Society

May 222018

816 State Street
University of Wisconsin, Madison Campus

There are four arches surrounded by uniquely different lions, leaves and garlands.

The entry consists of three arches surrounded by uniquely different lions, leaves, and garlands.

The building that houses the Wisconsin Historical Society (officially the State Historical Society of Wisconsin) is an excellent example of the classicism that followed the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago

The organization is simultaneously a state agency and a private membership organization. Founded in 1846 and chartered in 1853, it is the oldest historical society in the United States to receive continuous public funding.

The Wisconsin Historical Society has occupied this building, designed by Ferry & Clas, since 1900. When it was completed and dedicated in the fall of 1900, it was the most expensive building built by the state at that time.

Tile floors throughout the building differ from floor to floor. On the first floor, square sections hold printers marks from around the world in the center

This is the second-floor Reading Room, the public face and grandest room of the Society’s library. The room was restored in 2009-2010 to the tune of $2.9 million.

The restored ceiling was part of the $2.9 million restoration

When first built, money ran out before the Reading Room paint scheme could be executed. The colored stained glass panels were removed during a 1950s remodel, so the restoration included bringing things back, as well as finishing the original plans while upgrading the building’s infrastructure.

A total of 14,760 pieces of Kokomo art glass were used to restore the Reading Room ceiling. Originally skylights were above the stained glass ceiling allowing light into the room, the skylights are gone, and the effect of sunlight is provided with reflecting fluorescent lights

The pendant lighting is suspended from the ceiling and covered in gold leaf as are other decorative elements in the ceiling coffers.

The curved balconies look down upon the Reading Room

The stacked moulding patterns of egg and dart, dentil, lambs tongue and bead and rail can be found throughout the building

The balcony level

The table lamps were not reproduceable due to the fixture size, so the lighting company found clear globes and coated them with automobile paint, in a precise and difficult process

The table lamps were not reproducible due to the fixture size, so the lighting company found clear globes and coated them with automobile paint, in a precise and difficult process.

Mosaic Tile floor of the entryway and first floor. This pattern is reproduced in the coffered ceiling and the stained glass of the Reading Room.

The transom windows above many of the doors in the building

The Centennial Mural, commissioned in observance of the Wisconsin state centennial in 1948, sits between the third and fourth floors. Three periods in Wisconsin’s history are depicted: exploration and fur trading, economic progress, and the state’s political heritage. The artist was William Ashby McCoy (1913-2001).

“William Ashby McCloy lived in Nanking and Shanghai, China until the age of thirteen, returning to the United States in 1926. He received his first training in art at the State University of Iowa in 1930 and graduated with a B.A. in Art. He spent one-year at Yale School of Fine Arts before returning to Iowa for graduate study in the Psychology of Art receiving an M.A. in 1936. At Yale, he studied painting with Eugene Savage and back at Iowa studied printmaking with Mauricio Lasansky, sculpture with Humbert Albrizio and also painting with Eugene Ludens. In 1937 he became Assistant Professor of Art at Drake University for two years. In 1939 he moved to the University of Wisconsin and remained until 1948. He was Mural Assistant to John Steuart Curry on three murals and executed two major mural commissions himself (1939-1943). He spent 1943-1946 in the US Army where he served as a Clinical Psychologist. Returning to State University in Iowa he received an M.F.A in Painting in 1949 under the G.I. Bill and again later a Ph.D. in Art History in 1958. Between 1950-1954 he was Director of the School of Art at the University of Manitoba leaving there to take over as Chairman of the Art Department at Connecticut College retiring as Professor of Art emeritus in 1978.” via AskArt

John Muir’s alarm clock and desk

A highly interesting piece in a glass case on the first floor is this desk by John Muir.

Muir described this desk, and some of the other inventions that populated his dorm room, in his biography, “The Story of My Boyhood and Youth” (1913):

I invented a desk in which the books I had to study were arranged in order at the beginning of each term. I also made a bed which set me on my feet every morning at the hour determined on, and in dark winter mornings just as the bed set me on the floor it lighted a lamp. Then, after the minutes allowed for dressing had elapsed, a click was heard and the first book to be studied was pushed up from a rack below the top of the desk, thrown open, and allowed to remain there the number of minutes required. Then the machinery closed the book and allowed it to drop back into its stall, then moved the rack forward and threw up the next in order, and so on, all the day being divided according to the times of recitation, and time required and allotted to each study.

This is “Forward” by Jean Pond Miner, a female sculptor from Wisconsin. The sculpture was for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. “Forward” is an allegory of devotion and progress, qualities Miner felt Wisconsin embodied and is the Wisconsin state motto.

Miner was born in Menasha, Wisconsin in 1865 and grew up in Madison. She graduated from Downer College in Fox Lake and continued her studies at the Art Institute of Chicago. Though she had planned to become a portrait painter, her classes with famous sculptor Lorado Taft convinced her to change her emphasis. In 1893, both Taft and the Janesville Ladies Afternoon Club recommended her for an artist-in-residence position at the Columbian Exposition.

In 1895 the statue was placed at the east entrance of the State Capitol. In 1916, the State rededicated “Forward” and moved it to the North Hamilton Street Entrance where it remained until 1995. Unfortunately, the delicate bronze had suffered in its 100 years of outdoor exposure.

A bronze replica of “Forward” is now displayed at the west entrance to Capitol Square at the end of State Street, this original sits on the first floor of the Historical Society’s building.

The State Capitol of Madison, Wisconsin

Madison, Wisconsin

May 202018

There is more information on the State Capitol of Madison than many I have seen. So I will just be touching on the art and architecture, rather than the history, of this magnificent building.

It is important to point out that the people take very seriously that this is the building of the people, so it has no metal detectors and should you so desire, you can walk through this magnificent structure simply to get from one side of the block to the other.

Atop the dome is “Wisconsin”, sculpted by Daniel Chester French of New York. She holds a globe with an eagle in one hand and wears a helmet of the state animal on her head. The state animal is a badger. This came about when in the 1820s, mining had become a huge business, with thousands of men coming to find their fortune.

The miners made temporary homes by digging caves into the rock of the mines, similar to tunnels that badgers dig for shelter. The miners came to be known as “badger boys” or “badgers,” and the name stuck.

Looking up to the top of the interior dome you will see the painting “Resources of Wisconsin” painted by Edwin Blashfield of New York at a cost of $8000. In this photo, there is a woman with a red headdress representing Wisconsin. She is holding a sheaf of wheat, which symbolized Wisconsin’s roots as the breadbasket of the area, before dairy took over the econonmy. There are others products in the scene, such as tobacco, lead, fruit and fish. The paintings size is decieving due to its distance from the ground, but it is only eight feet smaller in diameter than the opening of the first floor rotunda, or a huge 34 feet in diameter. The outer ring of the painting is actually a balcony.

Liberty

There are four of these magnificent glass mosaics in the rotunda. They were designed by Kenyon Cox of Warren, Ohio at a total cost $20,000. They each contain about 100,000 pieces of glass tile and represent the three branches of government and Liberty.

Legislation

Government

Justice

There are badgers above the doors of flour second-floor chambers.

There are badgers above the doors of four of the second-floor chambers.

The highly ornamented red and gold leaf room on the first floor in the East Wing is the Governor’s Conference Room. It is designed after the small council chamber in the Doge’s palace in Venice.

There are many allegorical paintings throughout the room done by Hugo Ballin from New York. These paintings cost $25,000.

This painting shows Wisconsin’s role in the Civil War. The woman in the center is Unity. The woman on the left is Cordelia Harvey, widow of Wisconsin Governor Louis Harvey, During the war, Governor Harvey had asked Lincoln to establish military hospitals in the north, but Harvey died before this could happen, and his widow worked tirelessly to establish three hospitals.

These are a few panes from the skylight of the Supreme Court. This is one of four skylights in the Capitol, all made of low-toned leaded glass with metal halide lights above.

There are four murals on the walls of the court painted by Albert Herter of New York at a cost of $28,000. They cover the historical events that influence Wisconsin Law.

Caesar Augustus Octavius presiding over the trial of a soldier representing Roman civil law, which is written down in codes or statutes in contrast to English common law which is based on custom and usage.

The signing of the Magna Carta by King John, who was forced to sign by his soldiers and noblemen.

In the painting is the artist’s son, Christian Herter who later served as Governor of Massachusetts and Secretary of State under Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The signing of the Constitution in 1787. In the painting is Thomas Jefferson, who would not have been in the room as he did not sign, nor help write the constitution. It is possible the artist included him for his influence on American law.

This painting is an example of territorial laws. Wisconsin was still a part of Michigan territory at the time. This shows the trial of Menominee Chief Oshkosh when he was accused of killing a Pawnee and brought before James Doty. While the jury found him guilty, Doty ruled that territorial law could not be applied because Oshkosh had, in fact, followed the legal system of his tribal laws.

These columns sit behind the chairs of the Supreme Court Judges. They are of Benou marble from France.

The marble panels are Formosa marble from Germany and the columns are Italian Breche Coralline marble

Fossils are scattered throughout the marble

Fossils can be found in the marble throughout the Capitol, including a starfish on the North Wing stairs, this Ammonoid, Coral, Nautiloids, Gastropods, Bryozoans, Burrows, and Brachiopods.

The skylight in the Senate Chamber

The mural in the Senate Chamber was also painted by Kenyon Cox at a cost of $12,000 and is called “The Marriage of the Atlantic and Pacific” It commemorates the opening of the Panama Canal.

The groom represents the Atlantic Ocean and the bride the Pacific Ocean The figure in the center presiding over the wedding is America. On the right side of the painting the goddess of peace welcomes the nations of Germany, France, and Great Britain, and on the left, the god of commerce welcomes the nations of China, Japan, and Polynesia.

The skylight over the Assembly Chamber is the largest of the four skylights in the capitol

This difficult to photograph mural is by Edwin Blashfield, titled Wisconsin it was commissioned at a cost of $15,000. It illustrates the past, present and future.

The skylight of the North Hearing Room

There are four murals in the North Hearing Room painted by Charles Yardley Turner of New York at a cost of $20,000.

This room was originally used by the Railroad Commission so the murals reflect the history of transportation.

Native Americans on horseback

A trading post with a canoe as the mode of transportation

Early French settlers bargaining for furs with the Native Americans

The colonial period with a stagecoach

Modern transportation of steamboat, railroad, automobile and even an airplane

The exterior sculpture of the capitol is as exquisite as the interior. They are all by Karl Bitter, a Vienna native who came to New York in 1889. His work can be found in such great architecture as the Biltmore in North Carolina, Trinity Church in New York City and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Faith

Prosperity and Abundance.

Knowledge

Strength

This is just a small soupcon of what the Wisconson State Capitol offers. Free tours are available every day of the year, except New Year’s Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas. Plan on spending 45-55 minutes for a tour.

The Jacobs I House

Madison, Wisconsin

May 182018

Madison, Wisconsin
441 Toepfer Avenue

The front of the home now rid of its coat of creosote and showing off the woodwork as it was intended

Traveling with the VSA we had the true pleasure of touring the home of James Dennis, who graciously opened his home and took time to answer all of the questions we could possibly throw at him.

The home is the first of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian homes and was originally built for Herbert and Katherine Jacobs.

Wright used the term “Usonian,” to refer to an artistic, low-cost house built for an average citizen of the United States of North America. The North America portion was an important part of his adaptation of the term. Wright went on to design over 300 Usonian houses.

The back of the house with its brick and glass walls. Walter Burley Griffin created landscape plans for the house.

The house was built in 1937 on two lots in the Westmorland subdivision. The Jacobses picked the Westmorland subdivision for its then rural character and the relatively inexpensive price of lots. Wright forced them to give up a lot on the west side of Toepfer (on higher ground, with the potential for better views) for two lots on the east side of the street, which gave the house a better orientation for Wright’s design.

The house is 1550 square feet and consists of walls of boards, primarily in the front of the home and walls of solid brick or glass primarily in the rear of the home. The house sits on a concrete pad laid over tamped sand. It does have a small basement that contains the equipment for the radiant heating system.

James showing a sample of the wood wall construction

James Dennis showing the group a sample of the wood wall construction

The wood walls are mainly a composition of layered boards that Wright apparently invented. Wright believed that the thin sandwich walls would be cheaper and faster to erect than walls of standard balloon framing. These walls consist of interlocking pine boards standing on end, the side next to the floor is grooved to fit into the upper edges of zinc strips which are troweled into the concrete slab. This thin wall was then covered with building paper, and over that, on each side, is a layer of 91⁄2-inch wide boards arranged horizontally and held to the vertical boards by 3 1/4- inch redwood battens screwed to the boards with the screw heads all aligning to the directions of the boards. The walls were then covered with several coats of linseed oil on the outside and waxed on the inside.

The brick walls are the same on both sides. The glass wall in the living room and the two bedrooms are floor-to-ceiling sheets of plate glass set into narrow rectangular frames. These are nine feet high in the living room and seven feet high in the bedrooms.

Looking up through the overhands one can see how the water would drain off of the roof.

Looking up through the overhangs one can see how the water would drain off of the roof.

The roof was originally a flat roof which was later modified by the present owner to contain a slight slope solving a consistent drainage problem.

The house is filled with bookshelves throughout that were modified by Mr. Dennis to be slightly wider, allowing them to actually hold books.

One of the two bedrooms in the home.

The hallway connecting the main area of the home to the bedroom area

The kitchen, as in any Frank Lloyd Wright home is very small, it has been modified to allow some modern appliances

The kitchen, as in any Frank Lloyd Wright home is very small at only 7 x 8 feet, it has been modified to allow some modern appliances. The only windows are in the clerestory above

A window in the dining area just outside of the kitchen

A bay window in the dining area, just outside of the kitchen, lights both the dining and kitchen area

The fireplace was always the heart of the home in a Wright house.

This unique track lighting is original and, as specified by Wright, consists of 15-watt incandescent bulbs.

In a sad state of disrepair, the home was purchased by Mr. Dennis, a professor of American Art at the University of Wisconsin. Mr. Dennis explained to our group that when he purchased the home the exterior board walls were black from a coat of creosote, the roof leaked, and the overhangs were sagging. He brought the home back to its present shape with the help of Chicago restoration architect John Eiffler.

The restoration was not easy and was very obviously a labor of love by Mr. Dennis. Steel beams were placed to help correct the sagging edges, and return the roof to near horizontal. The heating system failed when steel pipes froze during restoration so it was replaced with PVC piping and the floor was re-poured with the added color of Cherokee Red The wooden walls were cleaned and repaired, the roof was covered with a continuous rubber membrane to help with drainage, and the electrical system improved. With all of these repairs, the house is now exactly as built.

A view of the ceiling in the interior of the home.

The carport, a term we were told was invented by Mr. Wright

The extreme cantilever of the carport, a term we were told was invented by Wright

The home is called Jacobs I as Wright later built another house for the Jacobses when their family expanded.

Although not scaled, this drawing from GreatBuildings.com will give one a sense of the floor plan.

The Unitarian Meeting House

Madison

May 172018

Madison, Wisconsin

At various times Wright used the word “aspiration” and “praying hands” to describe the soaring prow of the Meeting Hall.

Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and completed in 1951, when Wright was 84 years old, this church is recognized as one of the world’s most innovative examples of church architecture and one of Wright’s more influential buildings.

Despite being one of the more stunning buildings in Madison it was almost not to be. When the congregation was deciding who should design the meeting hall Wright was not the most obvious or wanted choice. In a widely circulated letter, one society member described Wright as “arrogant, artificial, brazen, cruel, recklessly extravagant, a publicity seeker, an exhibitionist, egotist, sensationalist, impatient, unscrupulous, untrustworthy, erratic and capricious. . . .”

The First Unitarian Society realized (after fees) $102,650 from the sale of its old church and parish house and $23,915 from the sale of its former parsonage. At the winter parish meeting held January 25th, 1946, the vote to hire Wright was twenty-five in favor, three opposed, and one abstention. The building was continually over budget and behind time.

You are greeted with this lovely saying as soon as you enter the Meeting Hall.

You are greeted with this quote as soon as you enter the Meeting Hall.

The materials selected by Wright consist of tawny-colored native stone, dolomite, for the masonry, natural finish oak for all of the trim which is a native and plentiful wood in Wisconsin, large expanses of clear glass, placed in horizontal, bands in the two wings and in the prow, and terra-cotta- colored concrete for the exterior steps, patio areas and interior floors.

The interior view of the prow

This was Wright’s “Little Country Church” as it sits on a small hill that once overlooked experimental farms that belonged to the University of Wisconsin.

The benches are designed for multiple uses. They are made of one sheet of 8 X 10 plywood and produced by the apprentices at Taliesin. Plywood was used as a cost-saving material but also makes them light enough to move easily.

Wright was a member of this church and his parents were founding members of the congregation in 1879.

The building reflects Wright’s beliefs in Unitarianism and Transcendentalism. Presumably, to underscore his family’s connection to the church, Wright had the name of his uncle, who was a Unitarian minister, inscribed with the names of five other Unitarian and Transcendentalist on the oak fascia at the base of the octagonal opening in the Hearth Room ceiling. The other names include Charles William Elliot, Theodore Parker, William Ellery Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

Unity Chapel also featured a large room divided by a curtain. The Meeting House inscription reads, “Do you have a loaf of bread break the loaf in two and give half for some flowers of the Narcissus for the bread feeds the body indeed but the flowers feed the soul.”

The curtain, which no longer hangs in the hall due to its delicate nature has a wonderful story on its own. In the attempt to cut down on the ever-increasing costs of the building of the church the women of the church took it upon themselves to construct the curtain itself.

Wright agreed to the women’s suggestion for a curtain to hang between the worship space and the social space, but it was to be designed by him. The women, knowing nothing about weaving, took classes at the local college to learn to weave, and then dyed the various materials in their own homes in big vats over their kitchen stoves. Each color was then sent to Wright for his approval.

It is a stunning piece of artwork all unto itself.

Triangular tables, designed by Wright, are used throughout the church.

Wright’s preliminary drawings reveal his use of a four-foot diamond or quadrilateral parallelogram with 60 and 120-degree angles as the unit grid for the design. The parallelogram provided the basis for the grid Wright used when laying out the floor plans and establishing the elevations for the roof, angular prow, and decorative details.

The Loggia continues the east-west axis established by the lobby and contains offices and a library, which were initially designed as classrooms, and a hallway with restrooms. The interior walls of the rooms in the Loggia correspond to the angled grid lines incised into the colored concrete floor; these spaces occupy approximately two thirds of the wing. A long hallway, which is lit its entire length by full-height windows and three glazed French doors, comprises the other third.

The Loggia continues the east-west axis and contains offices and a library, which were initially designed as classrooms. The interior walls of the rooms in the Loggia correspond to the angled grid lines incised into the colored concrete floor.

Wright donated these Hiroshige woodblock prints to the church. Each door is bracketed with one horizontal print and one vertical print. When the doors are open, the vertical prints are still completely visible, due to their positioning.

The Loggia ends at the West Living Room. This room was originally intended as the living and dining space of an unbuilt pastor’s residence.

The front entry side of the Meeting House

Knowing that the estimates for the construction were well over what the church could afford, arrangements were made with Albert J. Loeser, the owner of a quarry near Prairie du Sac, for the purchase of the dolomite for the walls at $20.00 per cord. Loeser agreed to further reduce prices if the society members hauled the stone themselves. Able-bodied members of the congregation assembled almost every weekend from the fall of 1949 through the spring of 1950 for the sixty-mile round trip to the quarry. It has been estimated that the volunteer stone haulers loaded and then unloaded approximately one thousand tons of stone. The church still refers to this labor force as the “stone haulers”.

This bell was supposed to simply be a decorative piece for the Meeting House. It is made of sheet copper, the same material used in the roof. It was never meant to be rung and was designed to be suspended under the highest point of the roof in front of the glass prow. Strong winds caused the bell to swing so much that it was removed to prevent any more serious damage.