The False Promise Of The Entrepreneurial University

Entrepreneurial University Hype

Glass Boxes As "Iconic" Architecture

Maybe some of the professors from the School of Architecture need to provide UWM Chancellor Mike Lowell some information regarding the buildings that make up the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus.

In a recent article, UW-Milwaukee Launches Research Center Construction, Chancellor Lowell (regarding the Kenwood Interdisciplinary Research Center, which will house the physics department) commented:

It's going to be a gateway to campus from the south on Maryland Avenue," Lovell said of the glassy five-story building. "We really don't have any iconic buildings on campus to showcase. This will be iconic.

Here's a refresher on some of the already iconic buildings on the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus.

From an OnMilwaukee article:

Downer College, Hartford and Downer Avenues...Merrill Hall's battlemented tower and the ornate decoration above the entrance to Johnston Hall. Designed by Alexander Eschweiler and executed in red sandstone, terra cotta and brick.

Waymarking details:

MILWAUKEE-DOWNER COLLEGE, 2512 E. Hartford Ave., is a private school for women. Its eleven red-brick buildings in Tudor Gothic design stand on a wooded campus of 50 acres. In 1895 the school was founded through coalition of Milwaukee College, chartered under the auspices of the Congregational Church in 1851, and Downer College, chartered in 1855 at Fox Lake, Wisconsin. Milwaukee College, which had been started in 1848 as the Milwaukee Female Seminary, was reorganized in 1851 through the efforts of Catherine Beecher, sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and of Henry Ward Beecher, abolitionist author and preacher. Although primarily a liberal arts college, Milwaukee-Downer has pioneered in art, home economics, and occupational therapy. ---Wisconsin, A Guide to the Badger State, 1941 

Today the college is part of the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. The Milwaukee-Downer moved to Appleton and joined with Lawrence College when UW purchased this property.

The Milwaukee-Downer "Quad" NRHP on the campus of UW-Milwaukee, at the corner of Hartford and Downer. This view is looking north at Merrill Hall (architect Howland Russel), with Johnston Hall (architect Alexander C. Eschweiler) to the right. Holton Hall is out of view to the left. [source]

Chapman Hall 2310 East Hartford Ave

Excellent example of Collegiate Gothic architecture. A large tower rises above the mutil-gabled building, which is faced with russet brick and brown sandstone trim. [source]

[source]

Sabin Hall 3413 North Downer Ave

Collegiate Gothic structure constructed of red-brown brick and sandstone.

Vogel Hall 3253 North Downer Ave

Red-brown brick college building designed in the English Tudor mode. Architect: Eschweiler & Eschweiler. [source]

Zelazo Center 2419 East Kenwood Blvd

Neo-classical synagogue with a cut Indiana limestone exterior. [source]

Mitchell Hall 3203 North Downer Ave

Educational building contructed in the Neoclassical Style, which was popular in public and institutional architecture of the early 20th century. The facade is red brick with contrasting trim and colonnade. [source]

Merrill Hall 2512 East Hartford Ave

Hefter Conference Center 3271 North Lake Dr

Mansion designed in a restrained Elizabethan mode; constructed of brown brick with stone trim. Architect: Fitzhugh Scott. [source]

Alumni House 3230 East Kenwood Blvd.

Constructed of Plymouth Stone Ashlar and a slate shingle roof. Outstanding Tudor mansion whose design adheres closely to historic precedent. The house is especially notable for the quality of materials and worksmanship, evident in the Plymouth stone walls, slate roof, carved stone trim, ornamental leaded glass, interior woodwork, and hand wrought hardware. Architect: McDonald Mayer and Fitzhugh Scott. [source]

For Further Reading:
Alexander C. Eschweiler, designer of HWTN homes and iconic Milwaukee buildings
UWM Building Directory 
UWM Projects & Planning

Your Water But Not Your Name

Milwaukee is a great place to extract water from. But, sorry, the Milwaukee Water Council doesn't want anyone to know that water has anything to do with Milwaukee.

As John Schmid reported, "The work of the Water Council has become global in its nature and the organization wants to jettison anything that smacks of provincialism," Executive Director Dean Amhaus said. Hence, they've dropped Milwaukee from the formerly titled Milwaukee Water Council.

Yes, all the companies that are members of the Water Council, those businesses which have benefited from Milwaukee's water, those same ones whom want see the "water hub" idea take-off, they just don't want to mention or give any indication that they are actually in Milwaukee.

Let's not forget this idea of a Milwaukee "water hub" and it's transformational economic powers are dubious. Nonetheless, being a Milwaukee initiative involving Milwaukee water, the fact that it's located in Milwaukee should be one of the focal points. Especially if the initiative is being sold as a catalyst for economic development in the Milwaukee area.

As a 2009 University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center for Economic Development report explained:

In 2009, UWM also launched the second key initiative in its entrepreneurial aspiration to become the driver of economic development in Milwaukee: a School of Freshwater Sciences. During the preceding two years, Milwaukee’s civic leadership had coalesced behind a regional economic development strategy, led by 69 business executives who organized something called the “Milwaukee 7 Water Council,” to “brand itself as the global capital of freshwater research”...

Curiously, no one in Milwaukee has done the comparative research on the water sector in other metropolitan areas that would be necessary to confirm whether a uniquely large “cluster” of water companies is located in the region...

Of the 40 global water companies listed by a Goldman Sachs report as generating the highest revenues none have their U.S. headquarters in Milwaukee...

What about the locations of all U.S. plants and offices –not simply headquarters-- for global “top 40” water companies? Over 50 metro areas are home to at least one U.S. plant or office of the global water “top 40.” What’s more, as in the case of headquarters noted above, the vast majority of these facilities are located in the suburbs, exurbs, and small towns of metropolitan areas, generally not in the central cities. Thus, as suggested earlier, this suggests that the economics of clustering and agglomeration may not be at a premium in the fragmented water technology industry, and that no one place is likely to emerge as a“Silicon Valley” of water...

The Milwaukee region supposedly is already home to a vibrant and growing water sector, comprising somewhere between 76 and 120 “water-related” companies (including local branches of five of the world’s 11 largest water companies). According to water boosters, these numbers are larger “than in any other city in the United States”; they confirm that Milwaukee is “already a leader in water technology”; and they confer on the region significant “first-mover” advantages in the race to become the “Silicon Valley” of water...

But, whether we look at headquarters locations, offices and plants, patents, or certain occupations, the Milwaukee region is hardly a “unique” presence in the industry, or even a “first-mover” in attempting to promote water technology as a local economic development strategy... 

Several regions, in the U.S. and abroad, do seem to have a leg up in growing and attracting water technology companies, but the industry doesn’t appear to exhibit a clustering that remotely resembles a “Silicon Valley.” And to the extent that there is a nascent Silicon Valley of water out there, Minneapolis, Toronto, Israel, or Singapore all seem like better bets at this point than does Milwaukee. 

So, we've gone through all this trouble and money to brand Milwaukee a "water hub," but now the powers that be would like everyone to just focus on the water and forget about Milwaukee. That's not right.