Monona Terrace

Monona Terrace is a major convention and civic center on Lake Monona in downtown Madison, near the Wisconsin State Capitol, and one of the city’s most prominent sites. Its origins reach back to 1938, when Frank Lloyd Wright designed a convention center there, but the plan was rejected and remained contested for decades as later proposals and financing efforts repeatedly failed. Revived in 1990, the project stirred debate over cost, authorship, lake views, and nearby Ho-Chunk Nation burial mounds. Approved by voters in 1992, it opened in 1997 with Wright’s exterior design and an interior by Anthony Puttnam, becoming both an active public venue and a rare realized Wright concept.

Madison, Wisconsin · United States