It's no secret that Milwaukee Public Museum will take on a new name when the "Future Museum" – currently under construction at 6th and McKinley near the Deer District – opens in 2027.
On Tuesday morning, that name was announced. The museum will be called Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin, reflecting its state-wide support and focus.
The new name will apply to the new building. The current location will remain the Milwaukee Public Museum until it closes for the move in late 2026.
The idea that the name would change has been public for at least four years now.
"I think that we always knew it would change," says MPM President & CEO Dr. Ellen Censky. "Part of it is that if you think about our history, we were run as a City museum until for 94 years, then we were run for 16 years as a County museum. Then we became a separate 501c3, so we've slowly separated from government funding."
Hence the removal of the word "public" from the name.
"Also we serve the entire state of Wisconsin and we really wanted to recognize that," Censky adds. "So we knew that we wanted Wisconsin in the name and we thought this is our opportunity to really tell you what kind of museum we are, to ... be really clear.
"Also, it helps with fundraising across the state. It's harder to get money from outside the city when you're fundraising for something that carries the name Milwaukee. So there were a lot of reasons, but how cool is it that the State's Museum of Natural History sits right in Milwaukee?"
The museum – the most visited museum in the state – has objects in its collection for every one of Wisconsin's counties – and was originally chartered in 1882 by the State of Wisconsin in 1882.
Indeed, the design of the new building itself was inspired by rock formations in Mill Bluff State Park near the center of the state.
The new logo will also represent those rock formations, as well as the distinctive shape of the new museum building.
The logo's primary and secondary color palette selections – red ocher, Wisconsin waters, Northwoods green, spring green and limestone – are inspired by Badger State landscapes and artifacts found in the museum's collections.
“This is a very exciting time for our institution," Censky says. "The Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin (name) honors the work we’ve been doing for nearly 150 years – sharing the intertwined stories of our natural world and the diverse cultures that shape it."
Despite the change in name, says Censky, the institution will not veer from its mission.
"Just like our current museum, the new museum will be a welcoming place for everyone, but we are not technically a public museum like we were decades ago," she explains. "Calling ourselves a public museum implies that we are still a government entity or get most of our annual operating support from the government. Neither case is true."
The mission of the Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin – which will be the fourth home for the museum since it opened in 1884 (or the fifth, if you count the earliest iteration at the German-English Academy) – remains to tell the stories of the state's natural and cultural history.
"If you look back to our founding documents, which the State of Wisconsin actually passed legislation that brought us into being and those, and in that we were to establish a museum that cares for and exhibits natural history and ethnology," Censky says. "As MPM does currently, the Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin will continue to serve as a statewide institution while proudly located in Milwaukee.
"MPM cares for more than 4 million collections items, including specimens from nature and objects created by people representing cultures from around the world and across time. Every specimen and object holds a story, and together they reveal the complex ways nature and culture are connected.
"The Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin’s galleries and exhibits will highlight how the natural world has shaped human experience – and how people, in turn, have influenced the natural world – making its new name an authentic reflection of the work and stories MPM has always shared."
Among the previously announced, Wisconsin-focused exhibits are Wisconsin Journey and Milwaukee Revealed.
Other exhibits – such as Time Travel, Living in a Dynamic World and the We Energies Foundation Gallery: Rainforest – are more wide-ranging.
More information about the new name and logo can be found at mpm.edu/future/brand.
While the construction work continues and the name change settles in with museum-goers, Censky said Thinc Design is pressing forward with exhibit fabrication.
"The exhibits have been designed and currently what's going on is a fabrication company has been hired and they are in the middle of shop drawings," she explains. "There are little tweaks that are going on when you start to put the real details to it. 'Oh, can't fit that there, we got to move that.'
"So we are in that process, the shop drawings are being done and then soon they'll start into fabrication."
In the current museum building, the third floor Asia exhibit is temporarily closed as museum staff is doing some test runs to help estimate how long the move will.
"We are staging permanent gallery collection items that that are on display now and that will be going on display, as well as those items that are not on display that will be going on display," Censky says. "We're doing that as a test run to understand what kind of time does it take, because you can imagine getting into (display) cases ... every case is different. So we're doing a test run that will help us to then lay out the timeline for when this work needs to start in earnest."
"We're being very intentional, wanting to leave as much on display for as long as possible," adds the museum's VP of Marketing, Rebecca Ehlers. "We want to be open as far into 2026 as we can and still have a great visitor experience. So we're trying to pull as little off the exhibit floor as possible, which means that we won't be able to get everything off before we actually close the doors."
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
