In mid-December Flux Design did its part to brighten Milwaukee's skyline. Atop the Wisconsin Tower, 606 W. Wisconsin Ave., is a 40-ft. dynamic lighting system illuminating the rooftop structure of the 21-story building.
Milwaukee's Flux Design was contracted by the building's owner, Dave Leszcynski of City Real Estate Development, to supply, program and install the tower of lights.
"It is for aesthetics," says Flux project manager Steve Sorrentino. "It has been programmed so Dave can have it play various light shows for certain calendar events, such as red and green for Christmas, red, white and blue for the 4th of July and Memorial Day, orange and black for Halloween, or even green and gold on the day of a Packers Game."
The rest of the time, Sorrentino says, the tower will run through various combinations of the more than 16.7 million colors the system is capable of.
"The sequences are relatively fast, taking only a few seconds to dissolve from one color to the next. This decision was mainly made so that passengers could notice the change as they drive past, but not so fast as to cause a distraction."
The structure itself was actually built in the 1930s as an art deco hot air balloon landing platform and, according to Sorrentino, has since been mistaken for "everything from a radio tower to a cell phone tower."
But in the matter of a day or two, the Flux crew had transformed it into a bright and beautiful addition to the Milwaukee skyline.
OnMilwaukee.com staff writer Julie Lawrence grew up in Wauwatosa and has lived her whole life in the Milwaukee area.
As any “word nerd” can attest, you never know when inspiration will strike, so from a very early age Julie has rarely been seen sans pen and little notebook. At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee it seemed only natural that she major in journalism. When OnMilwaukee.com offered her an avenue to combine her writing and the city she knows and loves in late 2004, she knew it was meant to be. Around the office, she answers to a plethora of nicknames, including “Lar,” (short for “Larry,” which is short for “Lawrence”) as well as the mysteriously-sourced “Bill Murray.”
