Iron Horse Site Visit

The site visit to the Iron Horse Hotel was really something amazing and a great opportunity to view the reuse of a historic building. Not only is the Iron Horse a reuse of a historic building, it does a very successful job of it. As our guide had mentioned the different and varying components of a hotel that all must come together are difficult let alone to do it successfully in a building that was in no way designed to be a hotel.

The picture I chose to showcase how the Iron

Horse Hotel embodies the successful reuse of a historic building is one taken in the main lobby of the iron horse hotel looking upwards and at the west wall towards the Smyth gourmet restaurant. I chose this picture because of the main aspect of the wooden beams used to support the structure. As our guide had said this type of architecture using wooden beams in no longer in use due to fire hazards realized by the Chicago fire. Rather than destroy or cover up the pillars and beams they are showcased, no only in the lobby but in every room on every floor. It shows not only the original structure of the building but also the old architecture and how reliant mankind was on materials provided by nature and not so much those created by man such as steel and other metals.

In the same way the wooden structure shows man's reliance on natural materials the Iron Horse also shows man's hard wood, specifically the cream brick that Milwaukee is known for. I think it was important and crucial for the Iron Horse to showcase the cream city brick but also to try and use as many materials from within Milwaukee as possible. This works with the preservation aspect because of the use local materials, just like local materials would have been used when the original building was built.

One final important aspect this photo showcases in the old elevator doorway around the center of the photo. This is a great feature for adaptive reuse. At first I thought of it as a pointless opening, maybe a doorway that was there that was not filled in to keep aesthetic similarities between the rest of the lobby and the balcony of the second floor that stretched around two other sides of the room. Then our guide mentioned how when bigger parties are present it is most often used as a place for the DJ to set up. I thought that this was an amazing idea, one that even had come later was a great execution of a space rather than trying to cover it up my mimicking the original cream city brick.