[Publib] Architecture AL Issue

[Judith Turner]

Since it's Friday I'll venture a bit off topic and mention round barns -- the Wisconsin countryside still boasts a few of these, built on the same principles as the prisons were.  Even painted red, they're now old enough to be charming upon viewing but apparently neither the cows nor the farmers were enchanted back in the day.

In the early 1970's a Milwaukee hospital used a round design for the 5 or six floors of patient care wards.  It calls to mind a starship docking at a space station with its rectangular and round parts, all in gray concrete-looking exterior, with exposed columns and oversize porthole-like windows for a decorative touch.  They're in the midst of a major new building project so the design never stopped anybody from using the facility but the new part will be a more traditional shape
(everything fits better inside the box.) 

Judy Turner
Whitefish Bay, WI

"Donna Noble has left the library. Donna Noble has been saved." ---- "Silence in the Library"  (Doctor Who, Season 4, Ep. 8)  



--- On Thu, 5/7/09, Bird, Daryl <DBird at riversideca.gov> wrote:

> Is anyone reminded of the panopticon?
> 
>  
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon