Join AIA Milwaukee for an architectural tour of the Forest Home Cemetery 

Join AIA Milwaukee for a walking tour of Milwaukee’s historic Forest Home Cemetery to explore how 19th-century site planning, landscape architecture, and civic leadership fundamentally shaped the city's built environment. Participants will analyze early urban design decisions aimed at addressing public health, sanitation, and green space integration during rapid mid-century municipal growth. The tour highlights the contributions of interred historic figures whose work influenced Milwaukee’s infrastructure, street layout, and public welfare frameworks.

Presenter: Docent from Forest Home Cemetery

Learning Objectives:

• Identify significant Milwaukee architects, builders, and architectural practitioners buried at Forest Home Cemetery—including members of firms such as Ferry & Clas, Eschweiler, Fitzhugh Scott, Kloppenburg, and Bentley—and describe their contributions to Milwaukee’s built environment.
• Examine the planning and landscape design principles that influenced the development of Forest Home Cemetery, including Increase Lapham’s role and the influence of Mount Auburn Cemetery, and analyze how these principles shaped the cemetery’s spatial organization and architectural character.
• Trace the development of architecture as a profession in Milwaukee, from its early roots in building trades, carpentry, and apprenticeship through the emergence of formal architectural education, professional accreditation, and organizations such as the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
• Analyze connections between architects and architectural works represented at Forest Home Cemetery and the broader evolution of Milwaukee architecture, including how their practices, buildings, and professional networks influenced architectural development through the 20th and into the 21st century.
• Apply historical context to the interpretation of Milwaukee’s architectural heritage, using Forest Home Cemetery as a case study to understand the relationship among professional practice, architectural education, landscape design, preservation, and the development of the city’s built environment.

Details: 

When you get to Forest Home, there will be should signs to follow to the office (or if entering at Lincoln Avenue, the office is the first building – with the awning – on the right).Check-in with an AIA Milwaukee officer at the main entrance off the corner of W Forest Home Ave and W Lincoln Ave. Lot parking is available. 

1.5 LU/HSW

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