Lake Mendota & Monona, Wisconsin 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Lake Mendota & Monona, Wisconsin 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Lake Mendota & Monona, Wisconsin 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall

Lake Mendota & Monona, Wisconsin 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Depth Chart

$ 289.00
24.5 x 31 in
Baltic birch, hand-stained water
Up to nine laser-cut birch layers
Carved bathymetric relief, laser-etched labels
Soundings: NOAA nautical survey data
How the Water Becomes Wood

A chart is a stack of flat sheets until the water's real soundings tell it what shape to take.

  1. SurveyReal bathymetric sounding data sets every contour line before a single cut is made.
  2. CutEach depth band is laser-cut from its own sheet of Baltic birch, up to nine layers deep.
  3. StainWater layers are stained by hand, reading darker the deeper the water runs.
  4. StackThe sheets are registered and stacked in sequence, and the bed's true shape rises out of the wood.
  5. EtchDepths and place names are burned into the grain itself, never printed on it.
  6. FrameA solid Baltic birch frame and acrylic glass finish the piece, ready to hang.

Mendota and Monona with Madison's isthmus between them, carved in Baltic birch at 24.5 by 31 inches: two lakes, one capital city on the strip of land they almost pinch shut, every depth contour its own laser-cut layer.

Mendota may be the most studied lake in the world; the science of limnology took root here at the University of Wisconsin in the 1880s, and researchers have tracked the lake's ice cover since the 1850s, one of the longest such records anywhere. Across the isthmus, Monona carries Frank Lloyd Wright's Monona Terrace on its shore. Between them sits the Capitol dome, visible from both waters. On the chart, the two basins face each other in birch with the isthmus a narrow bridge of top layer between them, the geography that makes Madison Madison.

Contours are laser-cut sheet by sheet and stacked by hand, names engraved into the wood, acrylic glass over the relief, solid Baltic birch frame.

Terrace sunsets, crew practice at dawn, ice boats in January: four seasons of two lakes, one piece of wood.

The engraving spans the UW campus and Picnic Point on Mendota, the Yahara River threading the lakes together, and Olbrich Gardens on Monona's shore. Wisconsin's other charted waters include Geneva Lake to the southeast and Winnebago to the northeast.

  • 24.5 × 31 in
  • Solid Baltic birch frame
  • Acrylic glass front, ready to hang
  • Free next-business-day shipping on orders placed by 2 PM EST
  • 14-day returns
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