| The Marshall & Ilsley Bank Building, located at 770 North Water Street in the City of Milwaukee and completed in 1968, is a 21-story steel-frame office building that was constructed as the corporate headquarters and main banking branch for the Marshall & Ilsley (“M & I”) Bank. The building is 21-stories tall; a five-story connector to the original five-story parking garage (demolished in 2018) and a three-story loading dock wrap around the north and east elevations of the office tower. Cantilevered canopies protect two entrances at the north and south ends of the west façade. The second through 19th stories of the building are regularly fenestrated with single-light windows, with bronze aluminum spandrel panels separating each story. Projecting vertical concrete mullions extend from the first story to the top of the building between each window bay and accentuate the height of the tower.
The Marshall & Ilsley Bank Building is locally significant under National Register Criterion C for Building Type as a fine example of the Post-War Modern Bank. The building’s International-style design, with its exterior curtain wall divided by vertical concrete mullions and sleek, open bank lobby, clearly represents the progressive, transparent, and customer-oriented image that bankers in the post-war period strove to project. The bank included drive-in and walk-up banking facilities that were serviced by state-of-the-art pneumatic tube and closed-circuit television systems.
The Marshall & Ilsley Bank Building served as the corporate headquarters and main branch for the Marshall & Ilsley Corporation from 1968 to 2011. Founded in 1847 as the Marshall Exchange Company, the firm was one of Milwaukee’s earliest financial institutions and became the largest bank in Wisconsin in 1993.
The Marshall & Ilsley Bank Building also represents a period of technological innovation within Marshall & Ilsley that began in the post-war period and continued to the end of the 20th century. In the 1960s, the corporation became the first bank in Wisconsin to process all of its checks by computer. In 1976, Marshall & Ilsley partnered with the First Wisconsin Bank, the Midland Bank and the Marine Bank in Milwaukee to create “Take Your Money Anywhere” (TYME) cash terminal system, the first shared cash terminal system in the nation. The first TYME machine placed in operation was located in the Marshall & Ilsley Bank Building’s lobby.
The period of significance for Criterion C is 1968, the year that the building was completed. |
