Springfield globe-republic. (Springfield, Ohio) 1884-1887, 1885-01-25
THE ALBANY CAPITOL
THE MOST EXPENSIVE EciFlcE ON
OUR CONTINENT.
A Magnificent Mass of Stone-Descriptfon
of the Interior-A Furniture Factory
Inside the Building-Jesl-
ou.y of Oficiais-
r'Gath" In New York Tribune.

r'Gath" In New York Tribunel
The state capitol building is the most ex-
pensve edifice ON this continent, having now
cost approaching Sl6, 400, 900. The capitol at
Washington was summed up ten years ago
to have cost about S13 000, ,O0O and since
that time nothing has been added except the
improvement of the capitol grounds. The
superintendent at Albany told me that he
thought he could finish the capitol il he had
81, ,0OO, 900 voted in one lump Some sceptics
there say that the capitol will take SO. 900 900
more II it is to be finished with the
tower, | should think it would cost nearer
s25, 900, 900 than SO, 900, 900. While the Al
bany capitol has great depth it is in its
longest part hardly half the length of the
national capitol A good deal OF the latter
edifice is nersly curtain or screen to connect
the wings with the old center. The Albany
capitol has three great stories mounted upon
a great basement, and above the cornice are
pavilions, themselves as high as ordinary
business blocks in New York. The architect
ure OF the capitol has manifestly changed,
and beginning with hard and massive Renais-
sance rusticated, it seeks in the highx. stories
to get into Gothic, Eastern and Moorish
forms, so that it may be ikened to stone
flower-pot with the flowers popping out
above
1t is impossible:not to admire such a mag
nificent mass of stone. Nearly everybody
likes the latest additions the best We have
had so much Roman Renaissance put up in
this country in the past fifteen years that it
has become monotonous. One of the archi-
tects of the Albany capitol was given the old
court house of New York city to extend, and
,..I, -Ia- L.l 49,.
already done he put his Oriental architec-
ture upon he classical body of the building.
Yet l saw prominent architect not long
ago reading q book Of essays on architecture
by this same man, and he said: Here is the
best writing l have ever seen in America by
an architect"
The state of New York has reached in the
new capitol at Albany the highest monu-
mentallzing Of a province known in modern
or perha ps feudal times. l can think of no
public building in the old ducal sovereign
ties of Europe which approaches in any way
the proportions and expense of this capitol
of a mere state Neither the American con-
gress nor parliament nor any law-making
body on the globe has such surroundings as
the senate and assembly of the prov
incs Of New York One architect
took the assembly in hand, and another
to use the words of Arta1nus Ward aput
souln into the senate. A fine foreign critic
on such matters would express the same as
Constituent entering these two chambers
that the official classes of England do at the
magnitude of the Federal printing. When
MIR. Hendricks was at Albany a week or two
ago. he exclaimed that he had seen nothing
in Europe like this capitol, and he may live
many hundred years in America before he
will see anything like il. The world seems
to have been ransacked for building ma
terial
The assembly sits under q roof that would
make old William Rufus pale with envy
There are great fire places in these chambers
which seem designed in some distant future
to be the tombs of great governors. The
paintings in the assembly chamber are about
100 years ahead of American appreciation
and as art is forever moving along, they
will perhaps be 200 years behind it when
the proper generation catches up. The very
subjects indicated seem to show that the
artist, like the architects, was working for
the encomiums of posterity This pupil of
Couture'S is Of honest Republican descent,
and the Flight of Night" and the Dis
coverer" might have been Couture's own in
spiration. The Gothic stairway of one arch
itect is now being thrown into mere democ-
racy by the stairway Of his competitor,
which is for the present half covered with
scaffolding.
II people are inauisitiys about the high
price of furniture, they can understand it hy
looking into the Albany state house The
architects have /. furniture factory right in
the capitol, for they would be ashamed to
have store furniture put under their mag
nifcent embossed ceilings and against their
beautiful leather walls; hence every chair is
designed for particular room, and mahog
any Is preferred above all things with wal
nut at discount, though now aud theI
some oak or ash is allowed to come in. Yor
can see clocks there twenty feet high, looking
like Gothic towers taken from old
palaces--so big, indeed, that if you
put your ear to the case you can
hardly believe tie clock is going, as the
dimensions almost exhaust the carrying
power of sound. In some of the fireplaces
the carving is so minute that the workman
will be a month at a good fat price day
executing few square feet of it Marbles
are brought here from Siena because they
have a certain flesh tint or yellow tint which
will set of the brass properly. The wooden
panels are made to receive paintings or
symbols in gilt As you go from room to
room, each, one putting royalty back in the
cradle, you are hardly surprised to hear
that the officials are jealous of each other oD
the question of room, and that a man with a
chamber only 100 feet square is not on speak
ing terms with another officer who has a
chamber l25 feet square.
spects. were infiexibIe on this subiact ~
architectural position. Soon after tbav
we're put in the court chamber ON the north
side Of the new capitol thew resumed 1ne
robs,s their ancestors had thrown awav i,