Hilton Milwaukee City Center

Hilton Milwaukee City Center
  1. About the Hilton Milwaukee City Center in Milwaukee
  2. Architect and team
  3. Architectureal style
  4. Spaces and uses
  5. Structure and materials

The Hilton Milwaukee City Center is an Art-deco skyscraper designed by Holabird & Root and built in 1927 in Milwaukee, WI.

Hilton Milwaukee City Center is not the only name you might know this building by though. It is common for companies to want to attach their names to iconic buildings when they move in, or for the general public to come up with nicknames, and this one is no exception. The building has changed names several times over the years, and is also known as:

  • Schroeder Hotel between 1928 and 1966.
  • Sheraton-Schroeder Hotel between 1966 and 1995.
  • Hilton Milwaukee City Center from 1995 until this day.

Its precise street address is 509 West Wisconsin Ave, Milwaukee, WI. You can also find it on the map here.

The building underwent a major restoration in 2000. The architect commissioned to undertake this restoration was Kaler Slater Architects.

Building's timeline

Construction completed
1927
97
Schroeder Hotel
1928
96
Sheraton-Schroeder Hotel
1966
58
Hilton Milwaukee City Center
1995
29
a
Restoration
2000
24
years ago
2024
  1. 2000 - Addition. The architect in charge was Kaler Slater Architects.

Architect and team

Holabird & Root was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

The studio was founded in Chicago in 1880, and even though it has changed names several times, the firm has evolved and is still active more than a century later.

The firm has played an important role in shaping the skyline of the windy city, and in the overall development of modern architecture in the United States.

The studio has evolved and adapted to the passage of time, from its rise with the Art Deco movement, to embracing the Modern style, and currently introducing sustainability into their designs.

Holabird Root

Holabird & Root was in charge of the architectural design, however, architecture is a complex discipline, which usually involves many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but at the very least we know that there was one other part involved, that was Otis as the company in charge of the elevators system.

Architectural Style

The Hilton Milwaukee City Center can be categorized as an Art-deco building.

The Art Deco movement flourished during the 1920s and 1930s, with many historians marking the outbreak of World War II as its final decline. Even though a couple of decades might not seem as much, the Art Deco movement had a great impact on architecture, and it's widely represented in many American cities due to the development boom that happened during that time.

Art Deco marked the abandonment of traditional historicism and the embracement of modern living and the age of the machine. In architecture, that meant leaving behind the ornaments of Beux-Arts and Neo-Gothic buildings and instead favoring simplicity and visual impact through geometric shapes, clean lines, and symmetrical designs. Ornaments were still an important part of the design, but they became bold and lavish, and were often inspired by ancient cultures or industrial imagery, instead of nature.

The Hilton Milwaukee City Center was completed in 1927, right when the Art Deco movement was at its peak, so it kind of went with the trend at that time.

Spaces & Uses

The Hilton Milwaukee City Center reaches an architectural height of 276ft (84m), 614ft (187m) if you count the antenna. It has a total of 25 floors.

Ever since opening its doors to the public in 1927, the Hilton Milwaukee City Center has mainly been used as Hotel space.

About the Hotel

The hotel is a 4 stars category hotel, with a total of 729 rooms available to the public.

614ft (187m)
276ft (84m)

Materials & Structure

The Hilton Milwaukee City Center uses a frame structure made of steel columns and concrete slabs.

A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.

The facade is non-load bearing either, as it is common in frame structure type buildings.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features red-colored bricks.

Another material found at the Hilton Milwaukee City Center is light-colored limestone, used for the cladding the first three floors of the building.