Home-grown talent

With so many willing contractors in Wisconsin, why wander?

By Jack Bess

A C.G. Schmidt Construction team pours concrete for the Calatrava. "All the different trades really worked together...more cohesively than any other project I've worked on," said John Kletti, with museum subcontractor Pieper Electric. Photo: James W. Brozek; Click on photo for larger image.

They could have searched the country for contractors to work on the Oz-like Milwaukee Art Museum expansion, but in the end, there was no place like home.

With only two exceptions, all the work on the world-class project, likely to become a defining element of the city's skyline, is being done by Milwaukee -- and Wisconsin-based firms, said Chris Smocke, the owner's representative.

Working on a project like no other has, for local contractors, become an experience like no other.
"It's fantastic," said John Kletti, project manager with Milwaukee's Pieper Electric Co., which is installing the building's electrical system. "It's probably the most interesting job I've ever worked on, with the attention to detail and the tremendous amount of time I've invested in the design aspect and in helping out, bringing things to the table and saying what can and can't be done."

For Tim Becker, application engineer with The Oilgear Co., being part of the project has sparked some pleasant emotions. The Milwaukee-based Oilgear is providing the hydraulic power unit and electrical control system that will operate the movable wings of the brise soleil, probably the best-known feature of the art museum addition.

"There have been times when you're walking around in public and you overhear people talking about it, and it's a great feeling to know that you're the one that's working on it," Becker said. "It's something that makes me really proud."

Poured concrete for the museum's main gallery. A shared recognition of the beuaty of architect Santiago Calatrava's design helped bind the team together. "...he's an absolute genius," said Richard reidel-bach, president of Duwe Metal Products, a subcontractor on the project. Photo: James W. Brozek; Click on photo for larger image.

For Duwe Metal Products, which is making the cable pedestrian bridge and the mast it's suspended from, the experience has probably been less like Oz and closer to "Gulliver's Travels" with its oversized objects.

The 192-foot mast weighs close to 100,000 pounds and was made from 1-and-5/8-inch, 1-and-1/8 inch, and half-inch plates, said Richard Riedelbach, Duwe's president. Also made in the Duwe shop was the base section, known as the boomerang, composed of four major pieces each weighing 40,000 pounds.
Welding the pieces together ate up "well over 20,000 pounds of weld wire," he added.

Another distinctive aspect of the project has been the cooperation among the firms, for which Riedelbach coined the word "teamsmanship."

The ideal of collaborating and cooperating was "carried through right from the get-go and on to every subcontractor that's come into the job" by construction manager C.G. Schmidt Inc. in meeting after meeting, Riedelbach said.

"What we basically did was, we took our egos and we just took them out of the picture," said David Kahler of Kahler Slater, the architect of record.

"We just pushed forward and forgot about ourselves and said, 'Let's figure out what is the best way to do this.' What has happened is that everybody has done it, very passionately."

And it was clear that tradesmen at the construction site had that spirit, too, Kletti said.

"All the different trades really worked together, in my mind, more cohesively than on any other project I've worked on," Kletti said. "I've seen tradesmen looking out for things other than their own installation. Maybe the plumber will see something that pertains to the sheet-metal worker and bring it to their attention. That doesn't always happen on a normal job where everyone just fends for themselves."

Workers remove wood forms around newly poured concrete. Photo: James W. Brozek; Click on photo for larger image.

The project team consisted of about 20 handpicked design and engineering firms, and the construction team was composed of about 40 handpicked contractors, Smocke said. Each professional knew that "everyone else in the room" was chosen for a one-of-a-kind project on the basis of their expertise, and that created a culture of mutual respect, he said.

"It's an extremely important culture that, frankly, does not always exist on more conventional projects where low bidding is the name of the game," Smocke said. "In the process of handpicking all of these people, we made it
clear to them we wanted them to be part of our team. In exchange for that and the opportunity to participate on this project, they all agreed to very reasonable margins and returns for their services and their work. So the
culture of the project is one that in great part had driven the teamwork."

A shared recognition of the beauty and wonder of architect Santiago Calatrava's design also helped bind the team together.

"Not only is he a designer and an architect, he's an absolute genius," Riedelbach said.

Local firms are doing the lion's share of the work on the Calatrava."... When you realize that the degree of technology exists in Milwaukee, a small city by comparison with the huge financial hubs of the east and West coasts, then you really come to realize just how technically strong the United States is," said Owner Representative Chris Smocke. Photo: James W. Brozek; Click on photo for larger image.

On what other project would an architect, when asked to name a particularly impressive aspect of the plan, be moved to nominate the below-grade parking facility?

"It has twin arched beams which come down to pin connections in the middle of the garage," Kahler said. "The slab on the ceiling is curved in such a way that it rolls up as it gets to the east and west sides of the building. The clerestory windows, which run the full length of the garage on both sides, bring in natural illumination. It's a beautiful space. It could be exhibition space."

There are two non-local firms on the project. One is manufacturing the steel cable for the pedestrian bridge. Those cables are being made in London by a company who makes more of it than any U.S. firm and therefore is able to give a better price for it, Smocke said.

The second exception is a custom-steel fabricating company in Portland, Ore., that is making the steel frames attached to the parabolic glass shell that sits over the reception hall, he added.

Smocke said that Calatrava has told him how remarkable it is that the museum expansion is being done by local firms.

According to Smocke, Calatrava said that, as a visitor to the United States, he expected the East and West coasts to be centers of cutting-edge technology. "But (as Smocke recalled the architect's words) when you realize that that degree of technology exists in Milwaukee, a small city by comparison with the huge financial hubs of the East and West coasts, then you really come to realize just how technically strong the United States is."