Look across the street for a tan, brick-covered apartment building with smooth, rounded corners and bands of windows that curve around, giving it a sleek, ship-like appearance right at the corner of Wisconsin Avenue.
Welcome to the Quisling Towers Apartments! Now, if you ever wanted to know what it’d be like to live inside a 1930s ocean liner parked on a Madison hill, you’re looking at it. Picture yourself back in 1937-jazz drifting in the distance, the city buzzing below, and up goes Dr. Abraham Quisling’s bold new project: a Streamline Moderne masterpiece. Its rounded corners and runways of horizontal windows make the whole building look like it could just sail away if the lakes decided to flood.
Dr. Quisling, whose family traded chilly Norway for the Wisconsin chill, had a real knack for medicine…and a hunch for real estate. With the Great Depression still hanging around, he and his brothers were investing in more than just stethoscopes and scalpels. When Dr. Quisling asked Danish architect Lawrence Monberg to dream up something fresh for Madison, Monberg delivered-big time! These towers launched the city’s very own slice of the Art Moderne movement, complete with fresh pine cabinets and fireproof tile walls. Just imagine living up in one of those penthouse towers above, with two stories, curving staircases, and fireplaces! (That’s about as glamorous as it gets-Hollywood would be jealous.)
The building has survived decades, keeping its stylish buff brick and sunlit corner balconies intact. Even a fire in the lobby in February 2025 couldn’t keep the Quisling Towers down. The fire department arrived, water hoses blasting, and the only thing left smoking were a few nerves and about $20,000 worth of lobby repairs!
So as you stand here, let the sleek lines sweep you back to a time when Madison was becoming modern. And hey, if you look closely, you might spot echoes of Quisling’s vision in nearby buildings-the Quisling Clinic and the Edgewater Hotel. That’s a whole neighborhood shaped by a doctor’s imagination…and maybe a little bit of Scandinavian stubbornness!
