Buildings of Wisconsin - Hardcover

by Marsha Weisiger (Author)

From Milwaukee to Madison, Racine to Eau Claire, La Crosse to Sheboygan, and scores of places in between, tradition and progressivism have shaped Wisconsin's architectural landscape. This latest volume in the Society of Architectural Historians' Buildings of the United States series showcases noteworthy and representative sites across the state's six major regions and seventy-two counties. More than 750 entries canvass the entire Midwestern mosaic, including Frank Lloyd Wright masterpieces, the extraordinary Basilica of St. Josaphat, Yerkes Observatory, Old World Wisconsin, the quirky Wisconsin Concrete Park and Dickeyville Grotto, Aldo Leopold's "shack," grand theaters, breweries, lighthouses, Northwoods retreats, octagon houses, round barns, and much more.

Drawing on the expertise of more than twenty distinguished contributors and the Historic Preservation Office of the Wisconsin Historical Society, this indispensable guide, illustrated with 300 photographs and 32 maps, surveys all of the state's major architectural styles, including exemplary works by locally important designers and nationally noted architects and a wide rage of building types, periods, and influences. Native American effigy mounds and the turtle-shaped Oneida Nation Elementary School express the rich heritage of Wisconsin's indigenous peoples. German farmhouses and mansions, Scandinavian barns, and ethnic churches and fraternal halls testify to the waves of immigration that shaped the state in the nineteenth century. Industrial buildings, company towns and planned communities, parks and historic districts, and modernist skyscrapers exemplify the progressive spirit that held sway throughout the twentieth century. From the vernacular to the spectacular, these sites and structures reveal the state's rich heritage, highlight its contributions to innovative modern design, and illustrate the many ways in which architecture embodies the social, economic, and environmental history of Wisconsin's communities.

A volume in the Buildings of the United States series of the Society of Architectural Historians

Author Biography

Marsha Weisiger, the Julie and Rocky Dixon Chair of U.S. Western History and Associate Professor of History and Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon, is the author of Dreaming of Sheep in Navajo Country and Land of Plenty: Oklahomans in the Cotton Fields of Arizona, 1933-1942. The volume's contributing authors include Jeff Dean, Jim Draeger, Geoffrey M. Gyrisco, Paul J. Jakubovich, William Philpott, Les Vollmert, and Tracy Will, as well as Arnold R. Alanen, Timothy Bawden, Robert Birmingham, H. Allen Brooks, William Cronon, Todd DeBruin, Michael P. Douglass, Katie Franks, Timothy F. Heggland, Paul R. Lusigan, Elizabeth L. Miller, Robert Ostergren, Martin C. Perkins, Charles J. Quagliana, William H. Tishler, Carole Zellie, and Wisconsin Historical Society staff.