Milwaukee Central Library

Milwaukee’s Central Library marked the local triumph of Beaux-Arts classical architecture. It also marked a victory for Milwaukee’s Ferry and Clas, who won a nationwide design competition that included a similar Beaux-Arts classical design by young Frank Lloyd Wright. Ferry and Clas’s formal, symmetrical composition typifies French-derived Beaux-Arts design, but the library at the University of Leipzig, Germany, is said also to have provided inspiration. In any case, the library’s shallow dome on a round drum, classical forms, portico, and wealth of delicate carved ornament were all features favored by the influential architects trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Inside, a spectacular rotunda lobby is paved with a splendid Roman-style marble mosaic, installed by Italian craft workers who immigrated to Milwaukee late in the nineteenth century. Large scagliola-clad columns rise the full height of the rotunda, supporting the majestic galleries and marble staircases and railings. The marble-wainscoted walls retain their original bronze and leaded-glass light fixtures. The dome finishes the dramatic three-story space with a Roman coffered ceiling.