Connecticut State Capitol - Architecture

Architecture

The building is one of the largest Eastlake Style buildings. The exterior is East Canaan, Connecticut marble and granite from Westerly, Rhode Island. The building is roughly rectangular, the interior spaces organized around two open interior courts that run vertically to large skylights. In the center is a third circular open rotunda beneath the dome. The large hall of the House of Representatives forms an extension on the south side.

The building's ornately decorated facades display statuary and include several statues, medallions and carved tympana over the doors (except the west, which only has statues). The statues are of politicians and other people important to the state's history, such as the initiator of Connecticut, the Reverend Thomas Hooker (c. 1586–1647), Governor John Winthrop, Jr. (1605/1606–1676), Roger Sherman (1721-1793), Revolutionary War Governor Jonathan Trumbull (1710-1785), Noah Webster (1758-1843), General Joseph Hawley (1826-1905), Civil War Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles (1802-1878), and United States Senator Orville Hitchcock Platt (1827–1905). There are 24 niches for sculpture, (eight of which are still empty). The last one added was that of Ella T. Grasso, the first female governor of the state, who died in 1981 of cancer shortly after resigning her office.

There are high relief scenes from the state's history in the 16 tympana above the doors, (except for the carving above the main north door, which is of the state seal). The typanum of the main east door, "The Charter Oak" by Charles Salewski, was the first piece of sculpture created for the Capitol. The interior floors used white marble and red slate from Connecticut, and some of the colored marble is from Italy.

The statues, medallions and tympana are grouped by period. The north facade has six statues, five tympana, and two medallions, and the carvings are of pre-Revolutionary War figures. The east and west facades contain people from the Revolutionary War or government service, and the south facade's figures are from the Civil War and onwards.

The central domed tower is distinctive. The dome itself is 32 ft (9.8 m) tall; on top of that is a cupola 55 ft (16.8 m) in height, and the drum below is 75 ft (22.9 m), making the drum taller than the 70 ft (21.3 m) height of the main walls. The overall height of the tower is 257 ft (78.3 m).

The building's dome originally had a large statue on top of it, named 'The Genius of Connecticut', which was taken down in 1938 after being damaged in the severe hurricane of that year. The statue was cast in bronze from a plaster original, and was 17.833 ft (5.4 m) tall, and weighed 7,000 lb (3,175 kg). It was executed in Rome, Italy and was cast in Munich, Germany. During World War II, the piece was donated to the federal government and melted down as part of the war effort to make ammunition and machine parts. The original plaster statue is now at the capitol, and has been coated in bronze. In 2002, Proposed Bill No. 5273 before the General Assembly sought authorization to make a new casting of the statue to restore the design for the capitol dome. The project finally passed in 2009, and a new bronze cast has been made. It has not yet been mounted on the summit of the dome, awaiting an additional $200,000 in funding.

At the exterior base of the dome are 12 statues in six pairs representing Agriculture, Commerce, Education/Law, Force/War, Science/Justice, and Music.

The interior has two matching ornate open stairwells and all of the building interior is painted in a multi-colored scheme continuing the 1870s Eastlake design aesthetic throughout.

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