P. Richard Eells//The eastern face of the Kahler addition, seen here in 1976, had deeply recessed windows and dramatic concrete cubes when it opened. Its appearance has been altered over the years and will be virtually erased with the new atrium design.

When the Milwaukee Art Museum released its latest design for a proposed atrium on the lakefront many exhaled deeply with relief. A design disaster was averted.

In a surprising twist, the museum wooed back architect Jim Shields — who had walked off the job in February, unable to support the project's direction. And a design that unleashed a torrent of criticism last month has been replaced with a more eloquent one.

This turnaround speaks volumes about the museum's seriousness in correcting the blunder and the ability of HGA Architects and Engineers, whose reputation was tied to the project as well, to negotiate a way forward.

The situation is so much improved that I am willing to support the museum's direction — but with reservations, as I believe the better choice would be to restore the 1975 Kahler addition. There is so much to recommend in Shields' newest design, with an upper floor dramatically cantilevered over a subtly angled, all glass first floor. More on that in a moment.

First, if for no other reason than to properly witness its passing, I want to note that Shields' atrium will forever erase the design ideas of architect David Kahler, eliminating the once handsome eastern face of his building.

Kahler's best — and primary — gesture was the cantilevered geometry on that eastern end, which referenced the hard-edged vocabulary of Eero Saarinen's 1957 War Memorial, though not slavishly. The new plan would demolish that grid for good, extend the building lakeward with the new atrium and turn Kahler's addition into nothing more than a bunker-like corridor.

"It was quite hurtful to me to see all of this," said David Kahler, reached at his home in North Carolina, who added that he has a very high regard for Shields. "I don't feel good about any of it.

"I think people have just basically forgotten what it was like," Kahler said of his addition. "It was very striking."

It was striking. And we have forgotten. The building was mangled horribly about 15 years ago when its deeply recessed windows were pushed flush with the building. Gaudy, black glass filled the windows. Then, not long after the opening of the 2001 addition by Santiago Calatrava, that lakeside entrance was shuttered, turning the back side of the complex into a dead zone.

The museum's director Dan Keegan has written off the Kahler, calling it a "derelict building," referring in part to the damage it's sustained over the years through deferred maintenance.

In truth, the museum could accomplish its goals by restoring the Kahler addition. The museum's project, which includes a top-to-bottom overhaul of its permanent collection galleries as well, is meant to open an entrance to the lakefront, address significant damage in its older buildings and create more room for art.

Restoring the Kahler is considered impractical because the museum would have to give up room for art. But, by simply giving up gallery spaces turned into offices and art storage, along with other renovations, the museum stands to gain far more room for art than it would give up, Shields acknowledged.

Of course, restoring the Kahler is a hard sell for other, unstated reasons. In general, donors are more inclined to write checks for new buildings than for fixing old ones, and collectors who might consider giving their treasures to a museum like to see an institution that is growing and able to accommodate an influx of art.

Also, Kahler's brawny aesthetic is a form of modernism that some find hard to love. Many brutalist brethren have gone the way of the wrecking ball.

I never saw the Kahler in its original state, but photographs reveal impressive, sculptural forms and a sense of dynamic equilibrium. It was a tough, rugged building, a fitting response for what it confronted — the expanse and capricious beauty of Lake Michigan.

"David Kahler provided an uncommon connection between the Minimalist art of his period and his building," saidEric Vogel, an architect and museum board member, referring to some of the great works in the collection, artworks by Robert Morris and Donald Judd, for instance. "To erase that architectural connection seems like a travesty."

In some ways, Shields believes he's correcting the irreversible damage done to the Kahler wing long ago. For many years, Shields took his grad students from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee down to admire the addition and talk with Kahler about feats in concrete. When the Kahler addition was first modified, Shields rode his bike down for a look. He was horrified.

"Fifteen years ago I thought, now here's a job," he said. "I am not kidding. I thought, you can't live with this."

The job he envisioned even then was to build rather than to restore, and reasonable people can disagree about this.

When Shields returned to the job recently, he and his firm HGA enlisted the help of a star colleague from the firm's Minneapolis headquarters, Joan Soranno. Known especially for her cultural buildings, she flew in to talk to museum officials and ease tensions.

Her influence is clearly seen in the result — a building of both refinement and industrial grit. Clad in resilient zinc (or perhaps copper) that will have a weathered patina in time, the upper floor is set atop a subtly askew, glassy first floor. Windows are set deep into the upper form with faceted frames direct views sharply toward the lakefront or the Calatrava.

That gentle twist of the first floor creates a perspectival illusion that adds to the cantilever's sense of heft. I sort of love that this visual trick, known well to artists and central to the history of art, is part of this atrium's quiet intelligence.

One thing that Shield's transparent ground floor does, too, is bring the art and activity of the museum to the lake's edge in a way that the Kahler never did. In fact, it offers a place for people who may or may not be interested in art to simply come inside, look at the lakefront and have a cup of coffee.

Though Shields has smartly tucked the exterior stairwells inside the envelope of the building, which now wraps around those passageways, I still wonder if this building will read like a cap or refacing of another.

Introducing another voice

My greatest concern, though, is the context. Shields' addition introduces another voice into an already raucous architectural altercation, where three buildings sit uncomfortably joined. It is hard to imagine a Calatrava-level architect ever wanting to tackle this site and do a larger, fuller addition in the future.

"One has to be careful to not introduce even another variation into the assemblage that exists today," said Kahler, adding that his building is being turned into the "junction box" of the site. "It looks to me like you are introducing another language."

Many, including Keegan, believe a museum addition on the north end of the site to be an inevitability in a matter of years, though this would require approval from the War Memorial's board, which also has an interest in developing the site.

Consider that it took the museum about a decade to realize the Calatrava addition and more years than that to come to agreement with the War Memorial and Milwaukee County over operational control of its spaces. Whether it builds an atrium or not, the museum's space will remain tight, by Keegan's own account, and its need to expand in a more significant way will become pressing soon enough.

In other words, the time to plan for another major addition is not a decade or a generation from now — but right now. Is Shields' atrium, improved as it is, a stopgap measure, a way for the museum to eke out all of the room it can for art now and to procrastinate on a plan for what could be an uncertain and politically thorny future? Will the museum's ability to expand again be hampered by this nice little atrium?

Asked about this, Shields said: "I have on occasion in my career felt that a building was really wrong, but it hasn't occurred to me on this one. Obviously I am enjoying doing the work, though."

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