| Additional Information: | A 'site file' exists for this property. It contains additional information such as correspondence, newspaper clippings, or historical information. It is a public record and may be viewed in person at the State Historical Society, Division of Historic Preservation.
Resurveyed in 2023 as part of the Mason St. Bridge rehabilitation project.
Excellent example of the design of Eero Saarinen, an internationally known architect.
Complete historical and architectural description in Milwaukee Landmark form.
The Quadracci Pavilion was added in 2001. Designed by Santiago Calatrava, the addition was awarded "Best Design of 2001" by Time Magazine.
Ornamenting the recessed bay above the entry level is a large five-panel mosaic of Roman numerals commemorating the dates of America’s involvement in World War II and the Korean War. Designed by Milwaukee artist Edmund Lewandowski, the 1.4-million-piece composition of marble and glass is one of the city’s most important examples of modern outdoor art.The War Memorial was designed as a multi-purpose structure and became the home of the Milwaukee Art Museum in 1957 and serves as a public meeting facility. To accommodate the museum’s growing needs, a large addition designed by Milwaukee’s Kahler, Fitzhugh and Scott, compatible with the original, was constructed on its east face in 1975.
The original designer, Eero Saarinen (1910-1961), was a leading American architect who is perhaps best known for his design of the 630-foot-tall Gateway Arch in St. Louis (1948). He reached the peak of his career during the 1950s. Saarinen’s father Eliel brought his family to America from Finland in the 1920s and founded an architectural firm that earned worldwide recognition. After his father’s death in 1949, Eero established himself as an innovator of contemporary architectural forms and made extensive use of concrete as a building material. Saarinen, later, employed a variation of the War Memorial’s wedge-shaped concrete piers in his spectacular terminal at Washington-Dulles International Airport (1958-1962).
Santiago Calatrava designed the building’s extraordinary lakefront addition, the Spanish architect’s first major commission in the United States. Its most remarkable feature, the Quadracci Pavilion, looks like the rope-rigged prow of a Great Lakes schooner as it approaches shore. Nine cables extending from a 198-foot “mast,” leaning back toward the “stern,” suspend a pedestrian bridge, which spans Lincoln Memorial Avenue and connects the museum to downtown Milwaukee. Biomorphic designs that draw on flowers, birds, skeletons, and other natural forms are a signature of Calatrava’s work. Landscape architect Dan Kiley of Vermont, flanked the addition with a geometric pattern of lawns--defined by hedges and water channels, and dotted with honey locust, crabapple, and linden trees--and concrete plazas, spouting water from monumental fountains. The wings of Calatrava’s signature sculptural element, the brise soleil sunscreen designed to shade the 90-foot-tall reception hall, underwent many changes between design and construction. Calatrava originally designed the wings to be made from a carbon-composite material, but engineers failed to meld carbon fiber to the steel rotating spine that opens and closes the sunshade. Engineers used a wind tunnel to design a hollow fin with 3-mm thick steel sheathing to replace the carbon-fiber original. To accommodate the additional stress and weight of the steel fin sunshade, engineers reinforced the foundation, decking, and back stay beam. |
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| Bibliographic References: | MILWAUKEE HISTORIC BUILDINGS TOUR: JUNEAUTOWN, CITY OF MILWAUKEE DEPARTMENT OF CITY DEVELOPMENT, 1994.
"Milwaukee County War Memorial, Milwaukee, Wisconsin", Architectural Forum, v. 107, pp. 90-95, 144, 12/1957.
Buildings of Wisconsin manuscript.
Pagel, Mary Ellen & Virginia A Palmer, University Extension The University of Wisconsin, Guides to Historic Milwaukee: Kilbourntown Walking Tour, 1967. |
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