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Washington State Capitol Under Renovation

© Jerri Brooker

Editor's note: One of the grandest buildings in Washington State is the Washington State Capitol. I took you on a visit of the capitol grounds and capitol buildings July 3, 2001, "Celebrating Freedom- a View from the State Capitol Grounds," http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/wash... . Take a look at that article and photos then come back for an update.

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Things change. There's no way to get around it. When you look at the 1928 Washington State Capitol building and add an earthquake to the mix, well...changes happen that are not favorable. So the building is currently undergoing a major renovation that is fixing not only the earthquake damage, but also other imperfections and shortcomings discovered through the tides of time. When done, now projected to be 2005, the building will be functional once again, its beauty intact.

The building in question is the domed structure in the middle of the photo. See what a grand presence she portrays even on a gray, rainy day in this photo looking across Capitol Lake back towards the capitol grounds; the dome is impressive even in the darkness. There's a lot going on in and around the walls of this grand building; construction workers are working magic.

Every project has a story to tell. This one is no different. For starters, since the legislature convened in this building, its elected officials and functions had to be moved to a safer place during construction. The governor's office had to be moved. Business-as-usual is taking place in different buildings on campus, more crowded and less convenient, and certainly not as luxurious.

Then there's the actual construction process. Damaged masonry, stone, paint and plaster need to be repaired, along with some colonnade columns that loosened in the 2001 Nisqually earthquake. There is also damage to the chamber's walls and ceilings.

Imagine the confusion as workers struggle to put the pieces back together under a grand masonry brick and sandstone dome that rises 287 feet to the top. It's the fourth largest of its kind in the world and the last ever built. Read a bit about the construction so far:

Required "extensive seismic strengthening...from the topmost lantern down to the dome drum beneath the exterior colonnade" included hand-carrying "60 tons of rebar... up 266 steps, one piece at a time," according to the Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation's Spring Summer, 2003, newsletter, Washington Preservation. Every colonnade column that supported the dome, 16 in all, had to be drilled and retrofitted with steel reinforcing rods in the center top-to-bottom. The columns that were out of alignment from the earthquake were not centered but still required the fix.

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