Ратуша Милуоки: историческое здание в стиле фламандского ренессанса, где хранится память о немецком наследии

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact The Epoch Times Reprints. In this installment of ‘Larger Than Life: Architecture Through the Ages,’ we view a 19th-century skyscraper distinct in its Flemish Renaissance Revival style. Milwaukee’s historic German culture is evident throughout Wisconsin’s largest city. When thousands of German immigrants flocked to the area in the mid-1800s, they built structures that reminded them of home. Milwaukee City Hall is one of the most prominent. Construction on the municipal building took eight years. Completed in 1895, Milwaukee City Hall was once the city’s tallest structure, rising 393 feet at the top of its flagpole. Milwaukee architect Henry Koch (1841–1910), who immigrated from Germany to the United States as a toddler, won an architectural design contest for the Milwaukee City Hall. He reportedly borrowed ideas for his monumental architectural design from the Town Hall, or Rathhaus, in Hamburg, Germany. Koch, a member of the city’s German Deutscher Club in the late 1800s, also incorporated iconic German elements into the Flemish Renaissance Revival style design, including four whimsical beer stein turrets in the tower. The eight-story, 107,000-square-foot building has as its main feature a 353-foot clock tower at the south end. The overall skeleton of the building is steel. But granite was used to construct the basement and first two floors, and floors three through eight feature a brick façade—with the tower also made of brick. A noteworthy element of Flemish architecture, in fact, is the use of red brick. Although Milwaukee City Hall is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the 126-room building continues to house the city’s main government services. What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to [email protected]. A 30-plus-year writer-journalist, Deena C. Bouknight works from her Western North Carolina mountain cottage and has contributed articles on food culture, travel, people, and more to local, regional, national, and international publications. She has written three novels, including the only historical fiction about the East Coast’s worst earthquake. Her website is DeenaBouknightWriting.com