Posted: 3/2/05
Minnesota State Capitol Centennial being observed in 2005
See State Capitol slideshow (photos by T.W. Budig) |
Capitol Area Architectural Board says $60 million needed to restore Capitol by T.W. Budig How long will the Minnesota State Capitol last? According to the Capitol Area Architectural Board, some $60 million is needed to restore the 100-year-old building. Building upkeep is becoming reactionary, said Paul Mandell, Principal Planner of the Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board. Last summer, some $800,000 in emergency funds was spent to fix the leaky Capitol roof. While necessary, it's not getting ahead of the maintenance curve, Mandell explained. "After 100 years, it's only going to be a matter of time until we start getting more and more problems," he said. Since 1985, Minnesota has spent about $26 million on building improvements. Currently, the Capitol Area Architectural Board is seeking $2.3 million in the bonding bill to complete renovations on the third floor of the Capitol. Because of extensive water damage from the leaky roof, the cost of renovation increased by about half a million, explained Mandell. Renovation will restore the third floor to its original appearance. Over the century, cigarette and cigar smoke has darkened the paint, which has been further shaded by past the maintenance practice of applying varnish over the old paint. "The colors are dramatically different and dramatically brighter," Mandell said of the small section of floor that has been renovated. Long-term plans call for Capitol dome interior renovation in 2006 -- currently paint is flaking and water stains mar the walls. Because of the extensive scaffolding that would be necessary to renovate the dome, it would be necessary to close it to the public. The interior dome was last renovated in 1952. Another strategic plan that could affect the Capitol is a proposed legislative building and underground parking ramp for north of University Avenue. Committee hearing rooms could be moved out of the Capitol and placed in the legislative building. The Capitol was never designed for hearing rooms -- current hearing rooms are converted office space, said Mandell. In those early pre-open meeting law days, hearings weren't held at all or, if they were, they took place in the Capitol corridors, said Mandell. Interested public could stand in the corridors and watch. Mandell argues the $60 million Capitol renovation price tag is a bargain. The State of Wisconsin over a 12-year period spent $145 million renovating its Capitol in Madison, he said. Texans had to close their entire Capitol for more than two years to complete their restoration, he said. |
by T.W. Budig
ECM capitol reporter
Ranks of aging Civil War veterans paraded their shot-torn regimental flags through the streets of St. Paul a century ago for enshrinement in a new location.
For the old soldiers, the day was heavy with remembrance.
Confederate bullets could not kill Col. William Colvill -- the Minnesota officer who led the First Minnesota in its famous, suicidal charge at Gettysburg -- but the valorous officer had fallen to time two days earlier.
So that day, June 14, 1905, Minnesota's past and future intermingled on the streets of St. Paul.
And as the old men marched toward the distant dome of the new state Capitol, past sacrifice and future hopes assumed the form of the gleaming white structure on the hill.
Something of that glow exists to this day.
Building the state Capitol had been a monumental task. More than a decade's planning and work had gone into the project.
There had been scandal, workmen's deaths, a political hubbub over the choice of building materials -- native Minnesota stone cut in Minnesota quarries by good Minnesotans as oppose to foreign stone -- with the final cost of the Capitol coming in at about $4.5 million.
The new Capitol was the third Minnesota had had since its birth in 1858.
Looked like silo top
The Territorial Legislature first met in a log hotel in St. Paul. Along with statehood came a new Capitol -- its modest dome looked a bit like a silo top -- but that structure burnt in 1881 during a legislative session.
A new Capitol was immediately erected but deemed too small from the start.
In 1893, legislation for yet a new Capitol passed the Legislature and the Board of State Capitol Commissioners appointed.
The commission, composed of professionals with sharp, proven business instincts, sponsored two design competitions.
By Aug. 5, 1895, 41 designs had been submitted in the second Capitol competition and out of this, the number weeded down to five.
Interestingly, the second-place design, submitted by a St. Louis architect, had a series of spires rising to the height of the modest Capitol domes.
Had the commission settled on the design, the St. Paul's skyline would look a tad more aggressive.
Winning submission
But the winning submission by St. Paul architect Cass Gilbert had a graceful Italian Renaissance-type dome in white marble, defined by columns and statuary.
Gilbert, 35-years-old when he got his big break, was born in Ohio but spent time as a young man working for a carpenter in Red Wing, according to "Minnesota's State Capitol," an excellent history published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press.
At 16, he became a draftsman for a St. Paul architect.
A biographical sketch of Gilbert, written by a personal acquaintance of the architect who would go on to design the U.S. Supreme Court and other state capitols, describes him as hardworking with a deliberate personal impressiveness touching on the pompous.
"He liked to have his own way in everything he undertook; he had convictions and expressed them strongly; a fact that undoubtedly affected his popularity many who whom he came into contact," said Egerton Swartwout.
If Gilbert could be overbearing, he was also gifted. He applied himself to all aspects of the Capitol project -- he didn't believe in specialities.
In art, there shouldn't be any, he argued.
And he was watchful.
Once a contractor tried to place a column with a minor defect inside the Capitol; Gilbert noted the flattened side and ordered the column pulled.
Gilbert was a watercolorist. The muted tones of the Capitol interior shows a subtle palette.
Groundbreaking on the new state Capitol took place on May 6, 1896.
A photo shows Channing Seabury, vice president of the Board of State Capitol Commissioners, coatless in the sun, apparently about to toss a spadeful of dirt into a horsedrawn wagon.
An advertisement for Hires Rootbeer can be seen in the distance on the side of a building.
Along came politics
As with any great public works projects, along with the laborers, marble and mortar came politics. With the state Capitol, a good deal of it focused on the choice of building materials.
Gilbert envisioned the exterior of the Capitol constructed of Georgia Marble -- he praised the stone's purity of color, crystalline quality, workability.
Not only did tradition support the idea of the use of marble in public buildings, but Minnesota construction stone, such as granite, sandstone, limestone, tended to be dark in color.
Gilbert argued a large, dark-colored building would look forbidding.
Commissioners had a tough choice: big contracts, Minnesota jobs and Minnesota pride rode on the decision of what materials to use.
In the end, the elected to build the Capitol superstructure of Georgia Marble, the basement of St. Cloud granite, and use Kettle River sandstone in other areas.
It seemed a judicious compromise. Critics thought it a sellout.
"It was practically the unanimous wish of the common people that the new Capitol be built of Minnesota stone, but a majority of the commission have seen fit to ignore this wish," roared the "Elk River Star News."
Bribe offered
The "Minneapolis Times" on Sept. 28, 1897, reported a Minneapolis councilman offered a $5,000 bribe to Commissioner John De Laittre if he'd vote for "home stone."
In an attempt to pacify one set of newspaper critics, Gilbert wrote a letter to the manager and part-owner of the "Minneapolis Journal" reminding the gentleman that he had attempted, by letter, to influence him in getting a stone contract to a company the manger had an interest in -- a minor interest, as it turned out.
It was a nasty business.
Gov. Clough requested the Attorney General render an opinion on the legality of using outstate stone in the Capitol, and it was opined that there was no legal reason for not doing so.
Perhaps Gilbert later regretted his insistence on Georgia marble.
As radiant as the Capitol dome appears -- it's one of the five largest marble domes on earth, one contender the Taj Mahal in India -- it leaked even before the Capitol was actually finished.
"He (Gilbert) never used marble again for his buildings," said Paul Mandell, Principal Planner of the Capitol Area
Architectural and Planning Board.
The marble dome pieces actually move, cracking seams open. And water actually can work its way through the white slabs.
Minnesota stone -- tan Kasota limestone -- adorns the Capitol interior along with a full palette of other stone, including exotics such as the red African marble that tips the points of the Minnesota star on the rotunda floor.
One feature that sets the Capitol apart from other Gilbert creations is the lavish use of art.
"People out in New York idolize this building and can't believe we're not taking better care of it," said Mandell.
Some $231,500 for mural and framed paintings alone were spent out of the total Capitol construction cost $4,458,628.27.
Murals brighten interior
Murals brighten the Capitol interior. In the rotunda alone, four large allegorical murals grace the rim of the dome.
(Rimming the rotunda floor, encased behind glass, are the regimental standards those veterans solemnly carried up the Capitol steps in June of 1905.)
One of the more famous paintings in the Capitol is Howard Pyle's "The Battle of Nashville," a battle in late 1864 in which four Minnesota regiments -- the largest number to fight in any one battle -- crossed 400 yards of muddy cornfield, stone fence, to attack the entrenched Confederates.
The painting, along with seven other others, is found in the Governor's Reception Room.
Although the Legislature met in the new Capitol in January of 1905, worked continued for two more years.
Paying for the Capitol lasted longer. Certificates on indebtedness were finally paid off in 1935.
The Capitol Area
Architectural and Planning Board estimates it would cost $800 million to build the Capitol today.
"Considering the state was only about 50-years-old, that (building the Capitol) was a huge step," said Mandell.
As noted in "Minnesota's State Capitol," Gilbert's design for the Capitol has been faulted for being inflexible -- it's hard to keep the Capitol up-to-date.
The famous Midwestern architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who in general did not like architecture unless it happened to be his, portrayed Gilbert as an artistic pawn -- a mere tool of the state and market forces.
But an artist uses the materials at hand.
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