Flatirons

by Michael Bridgeman

A new item on the Madison Trust’s “swag site” is a T-shirt featuring the Triangle Building, a graphic based on the Suhr Building which faces the Capitol Square at King Street. With its three-sided footprint, the Suhr Building is an example of a “flatiron,” a common building form in Madison thanks to the street plan devised by James Duane Doty when he was pitching the isthmus, then occupied by the Ho-Chunk, as the capital of the new Wisconsin Territory in 1836.

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Flatirons

 

Antique flat irons

 

The term “flatiron building” comes from the shape of smoothing irons that were used for hundreds of years to de-wrinkle fabric after being heated over fires or on stoves. Flat irons (two words) were often triangular and they were hot and heavy. Detachable wooden handles were introduced in 1871 (the center iron above) and electric irons became widespread in the 20th century.

The key characteristic of a flatiron building is that it has facades that meet at an acute angle of less than 90 degrees. Such buildings can be built anywhere but are typically found where streets, rail lines, or waterways meet at a sharp angle to create triangular real estate parcels.

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, 1885. North is to the upper left. [1]

Doty’s plan for Madison orients the corners the Capitol Square to the cardinal points while turning the principal street grid by 45 degrees. The north-south axis is Hamilton Street and Washington Avenue runs southwest to northeast. (The 1885 Sanborn map above was turned to fit the printed page.) The plan created many blocks and real estate parcels in the shape of right triangles with two acute 45-degree angles. Consequently, Madison is dotted with flatiron buildings that have been built over more than 165 years.

The Flatiron Building in New York [2]

The most famous flatiron building in America is a New York City skyscraper that was designed by noted Chicago architect Daniel Burnham in 1902. The Beaux-Arts building has a particularly sharp angle (25 degrees) and facades that rise uninterrupted to the cornice 22 stories above Broadway and 5th Avenue. While the New York tower has become known as the Flatiron Building, the term can describe any building with a more-or-less triangular footprint regardless of its height.

Keep in mind that “flatiron building” describes a form, not a style. The triangular footprint leads to triangular plan from which arises a flatiron building’s particular form—the contour and shape of the generally three-sided structure as built. The form does not dictate style. Façade design, ornamentation, materials, and such are open to wide variation, as seen in flatirons found around the world. Relatively few flatirons come to a sharp point. Their acute angles are often blunt or clipped, sometimes curved, and occasionally turreted. As you’ll see below, Madison’s flatirons make their points in all these ways.

On the Square

The Capitol Square is the heart of Madison and home to many of the city’s most familiar flatiron buildings. Doty’s plan created eight triangular blocks around the square and all but one (101 North Hamilton Street) has a flatiron building. They are a bit removed from the square physically yet strongly connected visually.

State Street at the Square, circa 1920. [3]

A postcard view shows two flatirons that still stand at the end of State Street. The three-story Willett S. Main Building on the left at 101 State St. (1855) is an Italianate design by Stephen Vaughn Shipman and is the oldest of the flatirons on the square. The four-story Wisconsin Building on the right at 100 State St. (1900) was designed by Gordon & Paunack in the Neoclassical style. Like other flatirons around the square, the building has a 45-degree angle that faces the square, here with a rounded point.

 

The Suhr Building

 

The inspiration for our T-shirt design, the Suhr Building at 102-104 King St. (1887) was designed by John Nader in the old-fashioned Italianate style [a] to blend with the older sandstone structures on the block, most of which are extant. The elaborate doorway on the clipped point that faces the square originally gave entry to the German-American Bank, which changed its name to the American Exchange Bank during World War I and moved to larger quarters in 1922.

 

100-102 N. Hamilton St.

 

The building at 100-102 N. Hamilton St. (1929), now the Madison Children’s Museum,  was designed by Law, Law & Potter in the fashionable Art Deco style, seen in the incised ornament that surrounds the entrance and decorative details at the windows. It was first occupied by a Montgomery Ward department store and from 1943 to 1986 was headquarters for the United States Armed Forces Institute. It was remodeled in 2010 for the museum.

Near the Square

Multiple flatiron buildings appear in the blocks just beyond the square as Hamilton, King, and State streets slice across the rectilinear grid. Like laundry-day flat irons, flatiron buildings come in many sizes and styles.

The Schroeder Funeral Home at King and Wilson Streets (1935) is a two-story building with Tudor Revival touches including the pointed arches above the first-floor windows, the detailing around the main entrance, and an oriel window at the second floor. If the funeral home is a diminutive flatiron, Capitol Point at 115 N. Hamilton St. (2002) soars, especially when viewed from the north where it rises 14 stories above the sidewalk. The clipped point faces Lake Mendota and steps back at the fourth floor. Designed by Bruce Simonson, the high-rise has 11 stories of condos set on a three-story base for parking and commercial space.

Along State Street

State Street heads due west from the square and intersects the underlying street grid at 45 degrees for its first five blocks. [b] In addition to the two buildings that directly face the Capitol Square (see above), the street is lined with numerous flatiron buildings, mostly from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in a variety of architectural styles. Two of particular interest are directly across from each other where State, Johnson and Henry streets meet.

Putting a turret at the point of a flatiron building is a quintessential Queen Anne gesture. The Matthew Gay Building at 302 State St. (1899) is the best example on the street. The brickwork and bay window are nicely done, but it’s the turret with its stamped metal panels and a conical roof that give it style. Gay was a merchant tailor who had his business here until 1910; it has been home to the Triangle Market for more than 80 years. Turn your view 180 degrees and you’ll see the most dramatic architectural flatiron in the city: the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art at 227 State St. (2006). Unique among local examples, its 45-degree glass prow wraps around a staircase and comes to a point at the roofline. MMoCA is part of the Overture Center designed by Cesar Pelli.

Other Points

Madison’s collection of flatirons is concentrated downtown, but they appear in other places where streets meet at an acute angle. Two buildings, one on the east side and another on the south side, are as different as the flatirons on State Street.

The H.C. Schenk Building (1923) at the intersection of Winnebago Street and Atwood Avenue was built as a dry good store with apartments above. The clipped 45-degree point faces what is still called Schenk’s Corners and was served by two electric streetcar lines when the building was erected. Peleton Residences (2021) rises where Fish Hatchery Road splits off from South Park Street and is the narrowest of the local flatiron buildings I’ve located, with an angle of about 30 degrees. The glassy nose tapers as it rises and leans forward over the coffee shop entrance. The six-story complex has 162 apartments.

 

The Jackman Building at 111 S. Hamilton St.

 

Looking at a particular form like the flatiron is one way to classify buildings that we encounter. Doing so removes us from focusing mainly on style, the usual default as demonstrated by the abundance of style guides available in print and online. There are other ways to consider buildings, too: function, materials, location, period, culture, and so on. Whatever frame we use, the point is to see and enjoy the places around us.

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Notes

[a] The Italianate style persisted in Madison until about 1890, mostly in commercial buildings. By that time Queen Anne had come to dominate domestic designs along with  Richardsonian Romanesque and (less often) the Shingle and Stick styles.
[b] The grid aligns with State Street after the intersection with Frances Street.

Image Credits

[1] Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin. Sanborn Map Company, Oct, 1898. Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn09603_003/.
[2] Postcard. Postmarked 1907.
[3] Postcard. Circa 1920.
[4] Postcard. Published by J.A. Fagan Co., Madison, Wis. Circa 1940.
[5] https://www.capitolpoint.org/home/
All other images by Michael Bridgeman.

Madison Trust