Set against a skyline of sedate office buildings, the Milwaukee Art Museum’s modern architecture catches the eye.
Its Quadracci Pavilion — designed by renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and completed in 2001 — is a showstopper of glass and white concrete. With flying buttresses and ribbed vaults, it’s a postmodern homage to Europe’s Gothic cathedrals. But, more than anything, it looks like a windswept ship that’s poised to launch into nearby Lake Michigan.
The pavilion houses the Milwaukee Art Museum’s temporary exhibitions. And it’s just one of many reasons to visit Milwaukee for an arts-themed weekend getaway.
Another is the Grohmann Museum. Housed within the Milwaukee School of Engineering, its unique focus is artwork representing “the evolution of human work” — for example, paintings called “The Miners,” “The Hop Pickers” and “Stacking Grain Sheaves.”
The permanent collection spans 1580 to the present and contains more than 1,000 works, from pleasant scenes of pastoral farming to contemporary critiques of industrialization.
Architecture buffs should check out Frank Lloyd Wright’s system-built homes, which were designed with affordability in mind. Six of the model homes, built in 1915 and 1916, are clustered in the 2700 block of West Burnham Street.
Restoration work is ongoing, but the Frank Lloyd Wright Wisconsin Heritage Tourism Program offers guided tours every other Saturday.
Milwaukee’s arts assets also include a broad range of art galleries, which carry everything from funky artisan goods to fine art. To see those galleries at their best, time your visit for the quarterly Gallery Night and Day event, which showcases about 60 venues throughout downtown Milwaukee.
• Where to eat: Artsy locals recommend Braise, ranked as one of the nation’s top roof-to-table restaurants. If chef/owner Dave Swanson can’t grow the ingredient he needs in his rooftop garden, he sources it from his strong network of local farmers.
Try a whole rainbow trout roasted in the restaurant’s brick oven, or perhaps roasted chicken served with parsnips and pickled cabbage.
Braise also has a cooking school, which offers hands-on classes on knife skills, foundational cooking techniques and other topics.
After a night of gallery-hopping, the Black Sheep wine bar is another good choice. Its unique wine taps showcase a rotating selection of small-production wines, available in three different pour sizes.
Black Sheep’s fun food menu emphasizes “haute” dogs, burgers and bar snacks; locals love the French fries with truffle aioli.
• Where to stay: Milwaukee’s renowned Pfister Hotel has an extensive art collection, including the world’s largest hotel collection of artwork from the Victorian era. But the hotel keeps up with modern times, too. Through its Pfister Artist-in-Residence program, a local artist receives a full year of studio and gallery space — where hotel guests can meet the artist and track the progress of his or her current work.
