King of Boredom on the Prairie: An Amateur Architectural Criticism of Madison, WI

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For those of you who don't know, "King of Boredom" is a nickname given to me by a friend. To be clear, I take pride in this nickname. There is value in exploring certain sides and angles of boredom, even embracing them as a part of one's identity. I am not disparaging Madison, Wisconsin by calling it boring. The city has an identifiable visual aesthetic, which right away places it above many US places architecturally. Its character and sense of history convey a strong and confident message of boredom.

A major theme is "dun" colored stone, a hue Merriam-Webster describes as "a slightly brownish dark gray". More modest buildings make use of similarly colored tan bricks. Equally characteristic are low horizontal lines. A 70's government office building with a concrete facade and long rows of black windows, or a modest low-rise garden apartment complex, fit with this style incredibly well. Anywhere else, these buildings would come off as mildly ugly, but here they have a gentle dignity.

Of course there are more eye-catching, conspicuously attractive buildings too. Madison is rich in spacious turn-of-the-20th-century homes, many built with the tan bricks, in a square Midwestern style that's proud, homey and a little bleak. One pictures comfortable yet disciplined lives being lived there. The present-day phenomenon I witnessed of local residents running for exercise in the dark of night on icy sidewalks during winter, well-prepared with safety lights and thermal athletic clothes, seems to fit.

It all harmonizes incredibly well with the landscape - yellow sandstone outcrops in thin even layers, and low rolling horizons opposite the lakes - but the aesthetic influence of the landscape is one of mildness. The hills and fields of Southern Wisconsin, as seen from the interstate, covered in snow, are pretty in a prim, minimalistic way. Madison's geographic location, which has some gravity to it, being on an isthmus between two lakes, and straddling the border between Wisconsin's "driftless area" hill country and rolling farmland, is cute. Other cities have more exiting locations though like the foot of a mountain range, the convergence of major rivers, or the edge of an ocean.

In case this assessment seems harsh, I'll admit that my taste in architecture runs towards the campy and gaudy. Some of the things my neighbors in New Jersey and Queens have done with columns, fountains, etc., I tend to enjoy more than monuments of restraint often held up as models of good design. Visiting the Midwest, I am more taken with Chicago's architecture of excitement: skyscrapers and conspicuous old timey wealth. I live, it should be noted, in New York City, but in that place, you end up ignoring much of what's around you for the sake of peace of mind. Madison on the other hand might be the kind of city that is rewarding to live in in ways one could not understand coming from a large metropolis for a short, flustered visit. Perhaps it demands personal qualities such as quiet maturity and calm self-possession - qualities your King of Boredom is still working on - to truly appreciate.

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