See Inside the New Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin

Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin. Photo taken May 14, 2026 by Graham Kilmer.

With less than a year before it opens, construction crews are working to finish the interior buildout of the new Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin, and one exhibit item has already arrived.

The five-story, 200,000-square-foot museum is being built at 1310 N. 6th St. Once complete, it will replace the Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) at 800 W. Wells St. Construction on the new building began in 2023, but MPM has worked on developing a new museum for the past decade.

“When we started, I think we all wondered, ‘Can we really do this?’ and we just kept on plugging away, and it’s now coming to life,” said MPM President and CEO Ellen Censky during a media tour of the building Thursday.

MPM staff are currently packing and preparing four million items in the collections to move to the museum and an off-site storage facility. But the first exhibit item has already been moved over.

On March 27, MPM moved a 20-foot-long replica of a carved canoe by the Haida, an Indigenous group. The large canoe was raised into the building with a crane before the fourth floor was completely sealed. It’s currently sitting in a crate.

One of the primary reasons for constructing the new museum was to consolidate the MPM collections. The museum on Wells Street was constructed in the 1960s and, according to the museum’s analysis, faced mounting maintenance issues, including water infiltration, that were imperiling the museum items and artifacts.

Particular care is being taken at the new museum to protect the museum items. The building contains 14 separate HVAC systems to maintain optimum conditions in different parts of the building for the various items stored or on display there, Censky said.

Key architectural elements of the new building are also taking shape. On the first floor, the entrance vestibule is becoming recognizable, and the framing for a massive three-story display case is also visible. The case is likely to hold large items that will be displayed long term, like mastodons, Censky said.

The first floor will also be home to the museum’s new planetarium, which Censky said will be clad in a unique Spanish terra cotta tile that should cause it to resemble a planet during the day and a night sky in the evening.

The rounded, sloping exterior of the building was designed to resemble Wisconsin’s natural bluffs. The building has few windows, a deliberate decision. The museum will include a number of new immersive exhibits that will use specific lighting to create the experience. However, to provide respite from these immersions, large window wells have been created for “reflection lounges” that will give patrons a chance to relax in natural light and take in views of the city.

Another new feature is the exposed collections rooms, where researchers and MPM staff may be working and where some of the museum’s collections will be stored. The architects built two extra floors into the east side of the museum and opened up some of the walls so that visitors will be able to see some of the behind-the-scenes work of the museum as they take in the exhibits.

The new Puelicher Butterfly Vivarium on the fifth floor can be seen from the street. Inside, the glass atrium provides sweeping views of the city and access to a rooftop deck. “I think the butterfly vivarium is phenomenal,” Censky said.

In March, Censky reported that the fundraising campaign was well on its way to meeting fundraising goals ahead of opening. She said Thursday that, due in large part to record inflation in recent years, the project cost had risen $15 million to $255 million, representing a 6% increase. The construction manager, Mortenson Construction, was able to lock in prices on building materials early to avoid major cost increases, and value engineering was used wherever possible.

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