Midwest (2) – Iowa State Capitol
Dec 20, 2014, Cloudy
There are plenty of things in this world that are not famous but significant. Finding them is a pleasure. Iowa State Capitol is one of them. This is what it looks like from outside. Everybody noticed that it has a gold color roof and 5 domes. The roof is covered with 23.75 carat Gold —- many many 3 inch by 3 inch golden leafs. The golden roof is replaced every 30ish years, deployed purely through human labors. It takes years to finish the project as the weather conditions have to be perfect when finishing golden leafs.
In the building, there are details that are also finished with gold leafs.
The building consists of 109 rooms, including supreme court, a library, a house of representative meeting room, a senator meeting room … Each of the 109 rooms is decorated differently. Importantly, all the decorations are done by hand, the wall is drawn by hand, the furniture is handcrafted, the windows are handmade, and the tiles are deployed by hand.
(Marble railing and granite steps)
(Original Italian tiles)
(Painted ceilings)
(Mosaic pictures on the wall)
(Handmade Stained Glasses and Skylight)
(the Dome, trivia: how to change these light bulbs?)
(Antique Water Fountain, the bottom contains ICE)
(Beautiful pictures and decorations)
Dramatically, there was a fire in 1905, started in the house of representative meeting room. There were two public announcements going out immediately. One was to recruit local business to move out the 100 tables from the fire room, and the other was to call for fire department to put off the fire. 97 out of 100 desks were saved successfully, currently still in use. Back then, the fire department only had horses and hoses. The fire happens in January, and the weather is very cold. The hose was successfully connected, but no water came out. Everybody thought the building would be gone. What would you suggest if you were there, intelligent fellow readers? There was this guy who proposed to shut all the windows and doors of the building. The fire indeed gradually went out due to lack of the oxygen, and the building was saved!
The building is still in use today. Here is the senator room. The chandeliers were imported from France and converted from gas to electricity. It weights 800 lb each and costs $800. There are 100 house representatives (30,000 people per representative) and 50 senators (60,000 people per senator) in Iowa. All the meetings are open to media and public (see the audience seats in the picture).
Here is the library, which collects all the law books. The representatives and law students are using the books. During the election seasons, the media borrows this room for publicity.
There was this little mechanics (called dumbwaiter) used for lifting the books, can you find it ?
Some tips for the tour: the tour is free and takes about 1-2 hours. Parking is also free. December is good time to come if you want to avoid the crowd. You are allowed to take as many pictures as you wanted, so spending an afternoon photography or sketch (or plotting some harry potter stories inside) is a good way to kill time ! Last but not least, I like to end my story with sweets (also found inside the building).
