Wisconsin Gas Building

Milwaukee's best-known Art Deco tower, brought down to something you can stand on a shelf. The building rises in stepped setbacks from a broad base to a slender crown, with the vertical piers running unbroken up the facade in the way 1930s American commercial architecture liked to insist on height. The flame beacon at the summit is the detail that makes it identifiable at a glance, and it has served as an informal weather signal over the city for decades. As a single-file model it suits diorama work, model railway townscapes and architectural display, where a real landmark does more work than a generic block. It will find its people quickly enough: anyone with a Milwaukee connection, architecture students collecting Deco skyscrapers, or modellers assembling a recognisable stretch of American downtown in miniature.