The story
Twice a day a machine on the Milwaukee lakefront spreads a pair of white wings 217 feet across, wider than a Boeing 747, and slowly folds them shut again. This is the Burke Brise Soleil, a moving sunscreen that crowns the Quadracci Pavilion, the glass hall Santiago Calatrava added to the Milwaukee Art Museum in 2001. It was his first completed building in North America, and Time magazine named it the design of the year.
Calatrava built it like a Gothic cathedral in white steel, with flying buttresses, a soaring glass nave over Windhover Hall and a suspended footbridge reaching back toward downtown. The fins open and close in about three and a half minutes, and staff will shut them in high wind.
Inside, the collection reaches from Old Masters to a strong holding of American art, including a large group of works by Georgia O'Keeffe, who was born on a Wisconsin farm not far away.
