Aaron Williams
Officials plan to beautify the area around UW-Madison’s Field House and create more gathering spaces.
In mid-March Madison learned that a much-maligned spire will disappear from Camp Randall. But lost in the excitement is news that it’s part of a plan to renovate the nearby Field House and create a large, new, outdoor gathering place.
“It will help activate the space and provide another venue for football Saturdays and events throughout the year at the Field House,” says Gary Brown, UW-Madison director of campus planning and landscape architecture.
One of the goals is to create a sense of arrival, an entryway to the UW campus. Right now, it’s a cluster of semi-adjacent intersections, combining Breese Terrace, Monroe Street, Regent Street, the Southwest Commuter Bike Path and — officially — Little Street. (Yet another cross-street, Crazylegs Lane, was officially closed by the city a year ago.)
“Everything is sort of coming to a head right there, and we really want to dress that up,” says Brown.
Over one corner since 2005 has towered artist Donald Lipski’s provocative 50-foot obelisk, “Nails’ Tales.” If one of the purposes of art is to inculcate an emotional response, the work has been wildly successful.
“Blow it up,” suggested former Mayor Dave Cieslewicz in a 2011 Isthmus column. Whatever its fate, Brown says, “That’s secondary to the whole discussion.”
On another side of the intersection, Madison recently created a pocket park. On its side turf, UW is pooling a number of planned improvements under the title of South Plaza Development, totaling $6 million and funded solely through gifts to the university.
“It really extends what the city did across the street in the new plaza space there, and all the way down Monroe Street,” says Brown, who has led the UW back to a “design neighborhood” sensibility, with districts of complementary features. “The city has spent a lot of time and money over the last couple of years upgrading that whole [Monroe Street] experience, and we want to try and carry that a little bit across the street and really upgrade that whole entry.”
Historic photos show that for decades the Field House and adjacent stadium were framed on three sides by empty green fields. Today, much of that space is now parking, which the university will convert to park space.
“We’re looking at the site out front, along Little Street, where we’ve got some service vehicles and cars parked,” Brown says. What he calls the “god-awful” retaining wall, a massive concrete pier facing Monroe Street, “has presented a lot of problems, so we’re looking at some solutions.”
Original outside stairs will be retained. Large boulders arranged as barricades — a “cheap and easy solution” following 9/11 — will disappear, along with cyclone fencing. Wrought-iron fencing and intermittent brick piers, already along other Camp Randall boundaries, will “provide that same security.”
And then there is the Field House itself. “It’s time that we really start investing in it and making sure that it continues for another 100-plus years,” says Brown.
The building is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a city historic landmark. It was designed in consultation with Paul Cret by campus supervising architect Arthur Peabody.
From 1905 to 1938, Peabody designed or oversaw design of half of today’s campus. In his first year he created a university master plan, which specified design neighborhoods such as Henry Mall. If a UW building has a tile roof, it’s likely Peabody’s — his buildings include Mechanical Engineering, Barnard and Lathrop Halls, the Stock Pavilion, Lakeshore Dormitories (and their quadrangles), Memorial Union and nearly every building on the agricultural campus.
The Field House, which opened in 1930, features Peabody’s triple trademarks of tile roof, exterior facing of sandstone quarried locally and a curious forced merging of Italian Renaissance Revival with American Craftsman, which he termed “rather simple and home-like.” It hosts men’s wrestling and women’s volleyball.
The interior of the Field House has been upgraded in the past few years, with a theatrical lighting system, a new video board, new sound system, and new locker rooms, according to Jason King, senior associate athletic director.
“This was the first year in a number of years that we’ve been able to open a number of significant portions of the upper deck for seating,” adds King, because they were brought back into compliance with the building code.
“We’ve done a lot of improvements to the inside of the building and now we’re really excited to be able to do some upgrades to the outside of the building,” King says. “Just kind of bringing it back to life, so to speak, to its original look.”
A lot of the exterior work will be cleaning up the stone and repairing where needed. “There are some pretty significant cracks in some of those exterior wall faces,” Brown says. The most significant work will be done to the windows. The building’s original skylights were removed in 1940. Remaining are the recessed, enormous, round-headed windows, 12 on the east and west sides, and five on the south.
Sometime long ago “they were blacked out just because of the glare issues for events during the day,” says Brown. Curtains, “now degraded,” were added.
Because it’s on the National Register of Historic Places, the UW has to observe federal guidelines. “We did look really carefully at restoring existing windows, but because they’re actually a steel-framed window, single-pane and they have paint all over them — and there’s likely lead involved in some of the caulking — it wasn’t appropriate to just try and do it,” says Brown. New frames with thermally-efficient panes will be installed instead.
“And then the doors, particularly on the south face, are going to be replaced,” he adds. “We’re going to try and perfect some more historic-looking doors with glass in them. Right now they’re just metal panel doors that were probably replacements at some point in time.”
The current timeline calls for the project to go out to bid this fall and work to be finished before the 2020 fall semester.
It remains a mystery who designed one icon of the Field House — the huge “W” on a red shield — which was later mimicked on other UW buildings, signage and stationary.
“We have a lot of people who ask who did it,” says Brown, but nobody knows for certain.
Brown says the crest is in good shape and requires no work. Even so, it will get a 21st century-style preservation.
“One of our contractors took a drone up and laser-scanned it,” says Brown. “We have a 3-D scan.”
