Historic Washburn Observatory prepares to reopen
The Washburn Observatory, the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s gate to the heavens, will open later this month following a careful two-year renovation that preserved its hilltop charm and historic significance.
An open house to mark the privately funded renovation of the 128-year-old observatory atop Observatory Hill will be held from 2-4 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 11.
Throughout the project, designers walked a fine line between preserving Washburn’s historical features and making it functional for 21st century use.
The observatory, which had been home to Institute for Research in the Humanities since 1958, will now house the College of Letters & Science Honors Program.
The project was funded by a $1.5 million donation from the Nancy Woodson Spire Foundation, a $500,000 gift from the Oscar Rennebohm Foundation and another $500,000 from other college gift sources.
“I was intrigued by the Washburn Observatory because of its location on campus, its style of building, and that it was the first building to be built with donated money rather than state tax dollars, and that they were restoring it again with donated money,” says project architect Laura Davis, of Madison’s Isthmus Architecture.
But it wasn’t just up to her. The Wisconsin Historical Society reviewed and advised on the work, says Jim Draeger, the society’s deputy state historic preservation officer.
Since Washburn is listed on the state and national Registers of Historic Places, the team was required to follow guidelines from the National Park Service during the renovation.
One rule, Draeger says, was “repair, don’t replace.”
“It’s as simple as if you can fix it, fix it, rather than tearing the historic fabric out and replacing it with new fabric,” he says.
Jim Lattis, director of the UW Space Place, says the team was careful to protect the library cabinetry, which is original.
“Where we added new partitions or new cabinets, we made sure that we didn’t remove anything original,” Davis says. “We went around original baseboards and we went around original trim.”
Features that weren’t original or were beyond repair, such as light fixtures, were replaced with modern pieces that maintained the period look.
The team also went to great lengths to determine what original features of the observatory, built in the Italianate style, had been lost or hidden. For example, the team took paint chip samples from the outer trim of the building and analyzed them to determine the original paint color.
“It really gives the building more definition from outside, and it really makes the building sandstone pop out as well,” says Chris Bruhn, assistant dean in the College of Letters & Science. “You just get a real sense of the texture of the exterior of the facility.”
According to Davis, the most difficult guideline to follow was not to significantly change the building’s outer appearance.
This presented a challenge because before the renovations, the building was not wheelchair-accessible. Installing an elevator to run between the basement and main floor wasn’t an issue, but adding an accessible ramp to the southern entrance did change the exterior appearance.
Davis says the team came up with between 10 and 15 different designs for the south entrance before one was chosen.
While both the basement and the main floor — the areas to be used by the L&S Honors Program — are accessible, the telescope still isn’t.
Although the dome isn’t lacking in height, the roof beside it that would house the elevator isn’t tall enough. In other words, they’d have to raise the roof to make the telescope accessible, which would change the outer appearance of the building too much.
However, an effort is under way to determine if a system can be installed to display images from the telescope to a data projector in the multipurpose room. That would provide a comparable viewing experience for those who can’t make it up to the telescope themselves.
“That would provide a comparable viewing experience for those that can’t make it up to the telescope themselves,” he says.
With the exception of a display case that will house historical astronomy displays, including an old weather vane found during renovations, the renovations in the basement primarily focused on the needs of the incoming L&S Honors Program.
The basement now boasts a presentation, or multipurpose, room and ample office space.
“The Honors Program required more space to meet its needs in a location very visible to students and the Washburn Observatory meets both of these needs,” Bruhn says.
Jeff Shokler, associate director of the L&S Honors Program, agrees.
“Our move to Washburn Observatory will, for the first time in the program’s history, allow the program to create community among students, faculty, staff and alumni through place,” he says. “Some of what Washburn will provide us is spaces for confidential academic advising, public spaces where students can come to interact informally and to study, more appropriate office capacity and space for the staff who administer the program, and even spaces in which honors courses can meet.”
But L&S Honors staff members are excited for the move for more than just practical reasons. They will be celebrating their 50th anniversary next year.
“We see ourselves as sort of a historic program on campus, and it just feels very right and good for us to be celebrating our historic anniversary next year and move into this historic building about the same time,” says Chuck Snowdon, a psychology professor and director of the L&S Honors Program.
The renovations are the latest chapter in Washburn’s rich history.
In 1876, Wisconsin Gov. C.C. Washburn added a provision to legislation that promised to grant $3,000 annually for instruction and research in astronomy when an observatory was built. A year later, no one had come forward, so Washburn took matters into his own hands, eventually donating more than $65,000 to build the observatory.
He had one condition, though. The refractor telescope was to be larger than Harvard’s 15-inch lens.
“The crudest way of putting it is that [Washburn] just wanted to get us above Harvard on the list,” says Lattis. “One of the reasons for establishing the observatory here was for the prestige of the university. He wanted to contribute to the development of a major research university, and that was a new idea in those days.”
The observatory’s construction began in 1878, and the result produced a 15.6-inch refractor, making it the third largest in the nation.
Local astronomers couldn’t wait to get their hands on the telescope when it was ready for research in 1881. Neither could the public.
“Apparently there was a lot of interest,” Lattis says. “People would just come up and knock on the door. They wanted to see the observatory and that sort of thing, and that was a disruption.”
So, in 1881, observatory director Edward S. Holden opened the telescope for public observation on the first and third Wednesdays of the month, a tradition upheld until the renovation began in 2007, and to be continued later this year.
Traditionally, the observatory is open for public viewing on the first and third Wednesdays of the month year-round except for the summer months, when it’s open every Wednesday. Times vary due to sunset and weather.
Research once boomed at Washburn. Joel Stebbins, director of the observatory from 1922-48, invented photoelectric photometry there, versions of which are still in use today. The discovery allowed for a better understanding of the structure of the galaxy by measuring interstellar matter and the distances to and between stars.
By the 1950s, astronomers realized Washburn’s refractor was outdated. Reflectors were used much more often for research, and Washburn was one of the last observatories to use a refractor.
Madison’s growth also caused problems for the observatory. The sky on Bascom Hill had become brighter from urbanization and dirtier from pollution. Air turbulence from uneven heat sources hindered the quality of observations. So, in 1958, the Pine Bluff Observatory, at a dark-sky site about 15 miles west of Madison, was built for more rigorous astronomical research.
Although reflector telescopes have been the preferred research telescope for quite some time, Washburn’s refractor is still functioning, a rarity for a telescope of its age. It is still an effective tool for astronomy students, and of course, for seeing a striking view of the night sky.
