How does one restore a “sense of place” when there is little evidence of what the original looked like? Architectural detective work, attention to quality, brilliant – meaning both bright and intelligent – solutions and persistence were brought to the task of restoring the Library Reading Room at the Wisconsin Historical Societyâ??s campus headquarters. For the $2.9 million renovation and restoration project, the society received a room demure in tone, expansive in structure and inventive in meeting an odd challenge of in-with-the-really-old, out-with-the-old. These subjectives the public can test for itself in tours Friday and Saturday, but students and other researchers have already responded positively to the new room: The comfy brown leather reading chairs, the special soothing color tones, the lovingly restored column plaster curleys and cues and dangly bell flowers, the mahogany tables, the handy outlets for laptop computers and the inviting green-shaded lamps.
Office of Strategic Communication