Three glass domes rise over Mitchell Park in Milwaukee: the Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory, known here simply as The Domes. This conservatory opened in 1964 following five years of construction that began in 1959, and it is owned and operated by the Milwaukee County Park System. It replaced the original Milwaukee Conservatory that stood from 1898 to 1955.
What you see are three distinct domes that together display a large variety of plant life. The Floral Show Dome was completed in 1964, the Tropical Dome in 1966, and the Desert Dome in 1967. The Domes have seen care and change: they closed in June 2008 for a major restoration after multiple cracked glass panels, the lobby was remodeled, and the conservatory officially reopened in October 2008.
Later, beginning February 8, 2016, the Mitchell Park Domes were closed because of structural concerns. Notice the scale and glass geometry of these three domes — the Floral Show, the Tropical, and the Desert — each raised across five years of construction.