Two important topics for Madison’s Historic District property owners: 

1. Madison Historic District Illustrated Design Guidelines will be considered by the Landmarks Commission on April 15th

2. A land division in University Heights generates disappointment and leaves a big question

The long-pursued redevelopment in the 400 block of State Street encounters another setback.

This month our Advocacy Committee provides an update on the Hovde demolition proposal in Block 75 and the approval of the Mifflin Arcade demolition by the Plan Commissions this week.

Landmarks Commission misses the mark when it decides Law, Law & Potter’s Art Deco style Union Bus Station has “no known historic value.”

The intersection of Main and Carroll Streets has long been a prominent site on the Capitol Square. While that’s due partly to the presence of the Park Hotel, it’s also a function of topography. Moving counterclockwise around the capitol, whether on foot or on wheels, the slow rise of Carroll Street enhances the presence of the building at the corner of the square ahead. In Madison’s early years, that was the buff-colored building visible just above the trees on the left side of the postcard view above. This month I look at that building and what has followed it.

Cast iron is an ancient material. By the eighteenth century it was employed in the United States for framing industrial buildings and by the 1840s was used for cast-iron façades. As it became popular across the country, decorative cast-iron appeared on Madison buildings in the 1850s. For architectural purposes it could be put to many uses, structural and decorative, since it was easily cast in a range of forms and styles, and it was inexpensive, especially compared to stone.

The National Register of Historic Places was created in 1966 as a provision of the National Historic Preservation Act. When President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill on October 16, two buildings became the first Dane County entries on the register: the Robert M. La Follette House in Maple Bluff (733 Lakewood Blvd.) and North Hall on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Dane County now has 272 buildings, structures, effigy mounds, and other places on the National Register. Since I started writing these posts a little more than four years ago, I’ve done a biennial report of recent additions to the National Register. Read on for the summaries of nine properties that were added in 2022 and 2023.