Whitney Moon comments on brutalist architecture of Milwaukee Safety Academy

The exterior of the police and fire academy building.
The Milwaukee Safety Academy, 6680 N. Teutonia Ave., is where Milwaukee police and firemen have been trained since the 1970s. But first, it had a short-lived chapter as a Catholic girls' school. | Photo by Emily Files/WUWM

WUWM reporter Emily Files recently explored the history of the distinctive building that houses the Police and Fire Academy, which used to be a Catholic girls’ school that operated from 1965 to 1971. Associate Professor Whitney Moon spoke with Files about the building’s design.

The distinctive building is one of many brutalist-style structures built in Milwaukee in the 1960s, she told Files, adding that it was viewed as a more authentic, unpretentious style of architecture, especially in working-class cities like Milwaukee.

With the school’s closure and the building’s conversion into the city’s police and fire training academy, the piece highlights an unexpected architectural shift and adaptive reuse within Milwaukee’s urban fabric.

Read or listen to the story at WUWM.