MILWAUKEE CITY HALL

I know I have posted shots of the Milwaukee City Hall before, but I was feeling restless in the heart of winter, the day was mild, and I wanted just to get out.  Plus there was semi-big news: the scaffolding that had enshrouded the building for several years had been removed!  The building, well into its second century, had experienced significant problems with deterioration of its terra cotta facade and repairs had taken several years, requiring the erection of elaborate scaffolding that had obscured the building's exterior.

So here, first, is an exterior view of the building.

Not a great shot, really.  It is taken from the rear of the building and does not do justice to the clock tower above the main entrance.  I guess I am just going to have to return.  The building's footprint is a trapezium, by the way (a four-sided figure no two sides of which are parallel, as distinguished from a trapezoid, which has two of its four sides parallel).

Here is a bit of a closer look at some of the building's detail.

The exterior facade is amply decorated with cherub-like figures, as in these detail shots.

A little weird to my way of thinking.

As I have shown before, the building's interior includes a central atrium encircled with balcony walkways on each of the seven floors above the ground floor.  Here are a couple of shots that I have taken numerous times in the past but I thought were worth revisiting.

And here is a shot looking down on the main floor from the eighth floor.

The lone figure helped provide context and scale.

All of the walkways are faced with ornate bronze guardrails that sport a dragon motif.

I thought this shot worked better as a black & white.  Unfortunately, the guardrail across the atrium creates a background distraction.  Here is another shot of a portion of the guardrail in shadow, allowing me to create a silhouette effect.

A little better, I think, although this sacrifices much of the detail.

John