Madison Design Professionals
Madison Design Professionals’ contributed a rendering for “Nolen Waterfront,” a park that includes a boathouse designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1893.
It’s not quite an art exhibit and not quite a meeting of the city’s Urban Design Commission. But whatever it is, Future Possible: Imagining Madison is frightening, joyous, deadly serious and outrageously funny.
In short, it’s the capital city 75 years from now, as seen by artists, designers and architects whose works have been assembled by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters.
The must-see exhibit is on display through April 15 in the Academy’s James Watrous Gallery, at the very top of the Overture Center for the Arts.
There are lots of calls for light rail, commuter rail, subways and even a monorail, but only Ashley Robertson presents an isthmus over which flying vehicles flit like butterflies. Her “Out of the Past: 2093” overlaps acrylic planes to feature a fun and lively look at Monona Bay and its causeways, with architecture of the Populuxe or Googie schools.
E. Edward Linville physically models the same general locale on a grand scale, dotting it with huge geodesic domes and towering crystal obelisks, connected by a system of electric water taxis.
There's a nod to the original landscape and its stewards, the Ho-Chunk. Appropriately, Anders Zanichkowsky presents “The Question of Reparation,” one of the few conceptual works and the only one you can touch. It’s an etching of a scale overlooking a clay platter of black nuggets.
Lou Host-Jablonski presents a generational design for planting maple trees whose branches will eventually be woven together to create “a living, breathing dome,” enclosing an Arts Nouveau pagoda. Beneath the raised mound will be tunnels aligned to the solstices, a crypt and a time capsule. The 75-year project would be carried out by volunteers, arborists, construction workers and “tree whisperers.”
Less sexy but essential is John Miller’s “exploration of potential futures for water, ecosystems and people in Wisconsin’s Yahara Watershed.” In fact, many of the works relate to Madison’s water, and its quality, though this is the largest-scale example. Kate Stalker’s ambitious plan to clean the lakes by 2093 frankly must be funded and begun immediately. Let’s hope we hear much more about it.
One highlight is a wall of handwritten suggestions left by visitors young and old: “beautiful architecture,” “no litter in Madison and no expensive things” (underlined), “Don’t forget the south side!” “MORE GAYS!” “MUCH more buildings!!” My favorites are the cryptic “zoo’s Free parking” and the plaintive “swimming in lakes.”
Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center’s “Terrace Town” program and the Urban Arts Collective’s Hip-Hop Architecture Camp are included in the several video displays. There’s also the usual litany of angst regarding beautiful historic projects that were never realized, most relating to Law Park. Why doesn’t anyone ever list the ugly and destructive projects that never came to pass, such as the proposed Interstate across the isthmus?
It seems a healthy thing for a city to look forward in this way. Perhaps the Academy could make the exhibit an annual or biannual event, continually calling for innovation, introspection and inspiration.
Participating artists Jeremy Wineberg and Anders Zanichkowsky will give a gallery talk at noon on April 13.
