Physics fills Chamberlin Hall today on the University of Wisconsin–Madison main campus here in Madison, Wisconsin. On the second floor this building hosts the L.R. Ingersoll Physics Museum, and those second-story windows mark where the museum is found. Chamberlin Hall was built in the early 1900s and was fully renovated and reconstructed in 2002.
It was formerly home to the Chemistry department and is named for Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin, who served as president of the University of Wisconsin from 1887 to 1892. Take in that sequence: an early-1900s structure later reconstructed in 2002, carrying successive academic uses from chemistry to physics with the museum upstairs. The building’s name directly recalls Chamberlin’s presidency from 1887 to 1892, a thread of institutional memory sewn into the façade you face.
Standing here you can trace the university’s changing needs simply by noting the departments and the dates tied to this hall. If you are curious about the physics collection, it is on the second floor where the L.R. Ingersoll Physics Museum is hosted. The hall carries the name of Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin, university president from 1887 to 1892.