Milwaukee Public Museum shares plans for Bucyrus Rooftop Terrace and $2.5 million Bucyrus sponsorship

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The Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) on Tuesday shared plans for a rooftop terrace, a rainforest exhibit and a butterfly enclosure in its fifth and final gallery included at its new $240 million museum in Milwaukee.

The museum wants to move from its home from 800 E. Wells Street to North 6th and West Vliet streets, and officials cited over $100 million in maintenance costs. The project is expected to wrap up in 2026 and it’s not clear yet what Milwaukee County will do with the old building.

MPM and New York-based Thinc Design showed sketches of the future museum’s “We Energies Foundation Gallery: Rainforest,” “Puelicher Butterfly Vivarium” and the Bucyrus Rooftop Terrace. The Bucyrus Foundation of the former manufacturing company gave a $2.5 million sponsorship to the rooftop terrace, MPM President and CEO Ellen Censky said.

Washington-based architect GGN will design the terrace and use native Wisconsin plantings designed to shift with the seasons, museum officials said. The Terrace will function as an outdoor classroom and observation area and will have a view of the Milwaukee skyline, officials added.

The future museum’s natural exhibits will be immersive and interactive, so the rooftop terrace will connect visitors with the outside world after spending time in the other exhibits, museum officials noted.

“The future of education is the future of our community. The Bucyrus Foundation is excited to support one of the largest cultural and educational institutions in Wisconsin and help provide generations of future visitors with opportunities to explore, learn and grow at the Bucyrus Rooftop Terrace for years to come,” Tim Sullivan, Bucyrus Foundation Chairman and former Bucyrus CEO, said in a statement.

Thinc Design had worked on projects such as the San Francisco Zoo and will use influences to create a simulated natural environment inside the butterfly vivarium, Thinc Design Senior Exhibit Designer Oronde Wright said in a webinar.

“In both Milwaukee and the San Francisco Zoo are natural environments that aren’t completely natural. We have this environment around us and insect lab around us. One thing we’re conscious of is creating moments where you do have immersion but realize you’re in a museum and use those moments to talk about what goes on behind the scenes,” Wright added.

No two projects are the same, but Thinc will use its previous projects in San Francisco and Philadelphia to enrich the museum experience for Milwaukee, Helen Divjak, a senior curator for Thinc, said in a webinar.

“No two projects are the same. So, what we’ve worked on in San Francisco, Philadelphia and here is a different project for a different audience. Milwaukee is unique and bespoke to this community and institution, but we use what we learned in previous experience to enrich experience for Milwaukee and Wisconsin,” Divjak noted.