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September 08, 2009, 10:00 AM ET
1881 Observatory at U. of Wisconsin at Madison Gets Makeover
 Washburn Observatory (Photo by Jeff Miller) |
The University of Wisconsin at Madison's Washburn Observatory, opened in 1881, will reopen Friday after a two-year, $2.5-million renovation that preserved the Italianate building's historic 15.6-inch refractor telescope while creating office and classroom space for a university honors program.
The renovation, overseen by Isthmus Architecture, involved making the building's basement and main level accessible to people with disabilities, according to a university news release. But the telescope itself could not be made accessible without significantly changing the appearance of the building, which is on both the National Register of Historic Places and a similar state list. The university is exploring a system that would project images from the telescope on monitors in an accessible room.
Construction of the observatory began in 1878 and cost some $65,000, which was donated by former Wisconsin Gov. C.C. Washburn, who was also a founder of what became General Mills. Washburn's one requirement was that the telescope be larger than the 15-inch instrument then in use at Harvard University, according to the news release. Although the telescope has not been used by researchers for decades, students have continued to scan the skies with it, and it has been open to the public on the first and third Wednesdays of the month since 1881—a tradition that was resumed on August 19.
The observatory building had housed another academic department since the 1950s.
Comments
1. 11272784 - September 08, 2009 at 04:13 pm
Nicely done. There are historic buildings and mechanisms that simply cannot be made accessible without going to ridiculous lengths and expenses. This seems like an appropriate compromise.
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