Centered on the UWM campus, Lapham Hall contains the
majority of the departmental research and instructional facilities
within its 125,000 square feet. Research and instructional
laboratories, support rooms, offices, an herbarium, aquarium facility,
environmental chambers, electron microscopy facility, and lecture halls
are located in the building.
The Lapham Hall Science Center Addition, occupied in 1992 and
attached to Lapham Hall, also contains a number of departmental research
and instructional labs, shared equipment rooms, a research greenhouse
facility, environmental chambers, and a large animal care facility
within its 144,000 square feet. The Lapham Addition is also home to the
Graduate School's Advanced Analytical Facility, Greene Museum and the
Department of Geological Sciences.
Lapham Hall was named for Increase Allen Lapham (1811-1875), Wisconsin's
first eminent scientist. A botanist, surveyor, geologist, cartographer,
and meteorologist, Lapham established and headed the first U.S. Weather
Bureau in 1869. He became State Geologist in 1873 and started the first
geological survey of Wisconsin. He discovered the tides on Lake Michigan,
and was the first to predict storms by weather observation. From 1850 to
1863, Lapham was chairman of the Board of Trustees of Milwaukee College, a
forerunner of Milwaukee-Downer College.
Lapham Hall, the first major building constructed after the merger of 1956, housed the Botany, Chemistry, and Zoology Departments. Chemistry moved to its own building in 1974. Botany and Zoology were merged in 1984 to form the Department of Biological Sciences. An addition to Lapham Hall opened in 1992, and houses Geological Sciences, the Greene Museum collection, the Advanced Analysis Center, and central animal care facilities.
3209 N. Maryland Ave.
Milwaukee, WI 53211
Built: 1961
Cost: $2,784,828
Grellinger-Rose & Associates Inc.
1992 Science Center Addition
Cost: $21,000,000
Architects: Plunkett Keymar Reginato
