Tripoli Shrine Temple brings a touch of the Taj Mahal to Milwaukee's Concordia neighborhood. This is not a religious building, but a striking Shriners temple built 1926–28 and formally opened on May 14, 1928. Designed by Alfred Clas and Shepard in Moorish Revival style, its forms borrow Moorish and Indian elements and are even loosely based on the Taj Mahal.
The order here traces older roots: Tripoli Shrine was founded in 1885 by nobles from the Medinah Temple in Chicago, a fraternal lineage that reaches back to a Masonic lodge established in 1843 by early settlers of Milwaukee — a lodge that went on to found a dozen other lodges. The Temple cost $616,999.61 to build and was the first temple in Wisconsin, once home to some 13,000 Shriners in the area. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Tripoli Temple and remains one of the best examples of Moorish Revival architecture in the United States, a style that was popular for synagogues and movie theaters.
Notice the Mudéjar-style polychrome stone coursing and the ornately tiled main dome crowning this Moorish Revival temple.