Building
The building is situated on 6.7 acres (27,000 m²) of land on top of Beacon Hill in Boston, adjacent to the Boston Common on Beacon Street. It was built on land once owned by John Hancock, Massachusetts's first elected governor.
Before the current State House was completed during 1798, Massachusetts's government house was the Old State House on Court Street. For his design for the building, architect Charles Bulfinch was inspired by two buildings of London: William Chambers's Somerset House, and James Wyatt's Pantheon.
A major expansion of the original building was completed in 1895. The architect for the annex was Bostonian Charles Brigham.
During 1917 the east and west wings were completed. Designed by architects Sturgis, Chapman & Andrews.
Read more about this topic: Massachusetts State House
Famous quotes containing the word building:
“Nowadays almost all man’s improvements, so called, as the building of houses and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I love art, and I love history, but it is living art and living history that I love.... It is in the interest of living art and living history that I oppose so-called restoration. What history can there be in a building bedaubed with ornament, which cannot at the best be anything but a hopeless and lifeless imitation of the hope and vigour of the earlier world?”
—William Morris (1834–1896)
“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
—Bible: New Testament, 2 Corinthians 5:1.