Salt Lake City and County Building
| Salt Lake City and County Building | |||
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| National Register of Historic Places | |||
 Salt Lake City and County Building |
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| location | Salt Lake City , Utah | ||
| Coordinates | 40 ° 45 '34.5 " N , 111 ° 53' 12.5" W | ||
| Built | 1892-94 | ||
| architect | Company Monheim, Bird and Proudfoot | ||
| Architectural style | Neo-romance | ||
| NRHP number | 70000629 | ||
| The NRHP added | June 15, 1970 | ||
The Salt Lake City and County Building is a historic building and the seat of the City of Salt Lake City . It was built in deliberate competition with the Salt Lake Temple from 1891 to 1894 under the auspices of the Freemasons . Until the 1980s, the administration of Salt Lake County was also housed here, which is why the building in the Central City district bears its current name.
history
On December 18, 1888, Mayor Francis Armstrong obtained the approval of the County Courthouse to build a new town hall to replace the previous one, the Salt Lake City Council Hall , and the Salt Lake County Courthouse. In 1890, the architect CE Apponyi from San Francisco won the tender for the building project with his plan . After the foundation was laid in the fall of 1890, the construction work was canceled at a cost of 20,000 US dollars. On the one hand, the geological conditions were unfavorable, on the other hand, the assigned building site was narrow and the city representatives wanted a green area around the new building. In March 1891, to the great annoyance of large parts of the public, the decision was made to put the building out to tender and move to another site.
According to the city archives, the architects from Monheim, Bird and Proudfoot, which had been founded for this building project and won the second tender on May 25, 1891, orientated themselves on the Town Hall in London by Christopher Wren , others arranged the style of the Richardsonian Romanesque zu, a form of neo-Romanesque created by the then leading US architect Henry Hobson Richardson with the building of the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane in 1870 . The typical elements of this style - the low-lying arched window clusters, the mighty buttresses that support the vaults in front of the entrance and the balcony, and the large dimensions of the roughly hewn stones of the outer facade - can be found in the Salt Lake City and County Building.
The construction of the Salt Lake City and County Building, whose contract John H. Bowman had secured in September 1891 with the lowest bid of just under 380,000 US dollars, caused controversy between Mormons and citizens of other faiths, as it was deliberately in competition with Salt -Lake Temple was set as the centerpiece of the city. Some also saw imitations of the Angel Moroni and an open rejection of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the bell tower of the Salt Lake City and County Building and its statues . After further political disputes between the non-Mormon Liberal Party and the Mormon People's Party and renewed problems due to unstable subsoil when laying the railway line to supply the construction site, a ceremony was held at the current location on July 25, 1892 in front of 4,000 visitors ritual patronage of the Freemasons laid the foundation stone for a rescheduled, new town hall.
The panic of 1893 , during which US gold reserves plummeted to historic lows and a recession reigned, halved city and county revenues , while unemployment rose to 20–30%. Public money has now been used to finance job creation measures, such as a rotation of workers, for this construction project. Bowman also hit the headlines in the first half of 1893. He was not qualified enough and paid his contractors unreliably, it was said, so that on July 26, 1893 he was terminated. For these reasons, the construction costs increased from Bowman's initial offer from almost 380,000 to over 900,000 US dollars, so that for financial reasons the city council considered a construction freeze in the spring and, in order to save on costs, the large windows with stained glass was dispensed with. On December 28, 1894, the Salt Lake City and County Building was consecrated and the spire statue was consecrated by Wilford Woodruff , fourth President of Latter-day Saints Church of Jesus Christ .
One of the architects, Monheim, an immigrant from Prussia, died a year after construction began. The other two, Bird and Proudfoot, moved to Philadelphia and New York respectively after the City Hall was completed and never worked together again. Little is known about their later work.
In 1895, the Utah Constituent Assembly met in the Salt Lake City and County Building. From January 19, 1896, when the Utah Territory became a state with all rights, until 1915, the Salt Lake City and County Building was the Utah State Capitol, home to the Senate and the House of Representatives. The city council currently uses the rooms of the Senate on the third floor. The fourth floor used to be the House of Representatives and the governor's offices . During the two world wars, the Salt Lake City and County Building was used as a training center for first aid and (medical) care for soldiers overseas, e. B. with bandages and gifts. In the so-called Hansel Valley earthquake on March 12, 1934, which reached a strength of 6.1 on the Richter scale , 2.5 tons of clockwork fell from the clock tower to the third floor.
In one of the courtrooms, with very little evidence, the death sentence was passed against the labor leader and wandering songwriter Joe Hill from Sweden , which led to outraged reactions in the labor movement and also made headlines internationally. Even initiatives by US President Woodrow Wilson and Swedish ministers could not induce the governor of Utah, William Spry , to grant a pardon, so that the death sentence was carried out on November 19, 1915.
On June 15, 1970, the Salt Lake City and County Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places .
Intermittently the town hall for about 31.2 million US dollar from 1973 to 1989 with the east entrance starting extensively restored and seismically isolated , and it was a foundation of steel and rubber and the tower with a half-timbered was stabilized steel. 2 km east of Salt Lake City and County Building runs the over 350 km long Wasatch fault , the local earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale can cause. According to the modified Mercalli scale , the building is in a hazard zone of level VII. And higher. Furthermore, the outer facade made of sandstone was cleaned and protected and parts of the interior decoration, which had undergone major changes in the course of history, were restored. As with the construction at the time, these measures were not without controversy in the 1980s. For example, some city officials spoke out against restoration and in favor of demolition and new construction in the same place. Only a referendum resulted in a majority in favor of retaining the Salt Lake City and County Building. However, the southern part of Salt Lake County was clearly against a restoration.
architecture
As a central element, the 88 m high clock and bell tower dominates the five-storey, 267 × 128 foot building structure with a 1.50 m thick outer wall at the base and a 4 m tall Columbia statue at the top . The main axis of the building runs in a north-south direction. Above the mayor's offices in the south wing stands a 2.70 m tall bronze figure of the goddess Themis as a personification of justice and order. Originally there were more statues on the Salt Lake City and County Building, but after the Hansel Valley quake of 1934 they were removed due to damage, as was the Columbia statue as a spire and replaced with new ones. The only original is the figure of the goddess of trade above the west entrance. There is also another figure of this goddess on the roof of the east side and a Liberty figure above the north entrance.
The exterior of the Salt Lake City and County Building is intricately crafted from local sandstone , much of which comes from Carbon County, Utah . Red granite was used for the exterior columns of the building . To the right of the southern entrance is the face of the Jesuit missionary Pierre-Jean De Smets , who worked in the north-west of the USA in the 19th century and preached to the Indians there. He was considered a friend of Sitting Bull's and had had contacts with the Mormons before they left for Utah . On the left is the Spanish explorer and conquistador García López de Cárdenas , who reached southern Utah in 1540.
Images of female settlers are carved into the stone above the granite columns of the east and west entrances . Between the balcony and the portal on the east side there are portraits of the chiefs Chief Joseph , Walkara and the trapper, scout and explorer Jim Bridger . Above the main entrance to the west, from left to right, are RN Baskin, who was mayor from 1892 to 1895 during construction , Jedediah M. Grant, Mormon leader and apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and politician Jacob B. Blair , who served as probate judge in Salt Lake County from 1892 to 1895. In the arched frieze under the gable you can see a beehive as an earlier symbol of the state's industry, a farmer to the left and a miner to the right, a sun with facial features and rays in the background. Above the north entrance, the Dominguez Escalante Expedition of 1776 is shown as a frieze, which came from Santa Fe to the Salt Lake Valley . Gargoyles , eagles, sea monsters, beehives, symbols of Freemasonry and others are carved into the stone across the outer facade . In addition, the history of Utah with the prehistoric Lake Bonneville starting to the present day is thematized in the facade design. One of the master stonemasons, the French Oswald Lendi, to whom most of the figures on the outer facade can be traced back, has worked his face in a strange way between the words City and Hall above the north entrance. The west and east entrances as well as the north and south entrances correspond to each other. There are two fountains to the west of the Salt Lake City and County Building. These are reproductions of the originals destroyed in the 1950s.
Inside there are, among other things, 5 m high vaulted ceilings with extensive stucco work , wall paneling made of onyx and oak, floor tiles in different colors , marble chimneys and architectural elements that cannot be reproduced. The onyx for the paneling of the corridors on the first and second floors was supplied free of charge by the Utah Onyx Company in December 1939, which is why the copper paneling that was actually intended was not used. Various fossils are included in the onyx, which originated from Pelican Point.
The thirteen steps that lead to the first floor represent the Thirteen Colonies that declared independence from motherland Great Britain in 1776. Out of respect for the indigenous people of the Salt Lake Valley, the pattern of the floor tiles resembles the woven blankets of the Indians. In the hallway on the second floor there are portraits of almost all of the city's previous mayors. When the building opened, all the rooms in the north were painted in red, those in the south in dark green. After discussions, the larger and open rooms were designed in lighter colors, while the smaller rooms and niches remained in the original dark tones. The council chamber is dominated by a large portrait of Brigham Young , the first President of the Utah Territory and Mormon leader, on the east wall. Most of the listening chairs there are originals, while most of the council's furniture was auctioned off in the 1960s.
location
The Salt Lake City and County Building stands alone in the center of a four- acre block called Washington Square, between State Street, 200 East, 400 and 500 South, and is surrounded by a small park decorated with statues. Washington Square has been named after August 22, 1847, when an advance division of Mormon pioneers camped here and named the place after George Washington . Across from this block is the Chamber of Commerce building to the north and the Scott M. Matheson State Courthouse, which is the seat of the Utah Supreme Court, to the west .
Washington Square is a regular venue for cultural events. When the announcement of the IOC's decision to host the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City was broadcast on this square on June 16, 1995 , 50,000 people gathered.
Web links
- Salt Lake City & County Building. In: Official website of Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City Corporation , archived from the original on December 22, 2011 ; accessed on July 3, 2011 (English).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Unless otherwise stated, the information is based on Salt Lake City & County Building. In: Official website of Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City Corporation , archived from the original on December 22, 2011 ; accessed on July 3, 2011 (English).
- ^ Historic Sites Survey: Salt Lake City and County Building. (PDF) In: National Register of Historic Places Inventory: Nomination Form. National Park Service , April 27, 1970, p. 2 , accessed July 3, 2011 (English, PDF 770KB).
- ^ A b Edmund W. Allen and James S. Bailey: Seismic Rehabilitation of the Salt Lake City & County Building using base isolation. (PDF 1.69 MB) In: Proceedings of Ninth World Conferences on Earthquake Engineering. August 2, 1988, p. 1 , accessed July 3, 2011 (English, Tokyo and Kyoto, Volume V).
- ^ A b c Historic Sites Survey: Salt Lake City and County Building. (PDF) In: National Register of Historic Places Inventory: Nomination Form. National Park Service , April 27, 1970, p. 3 , accessed July 3, 2011 (English, PDF 770KB).
- ↑ Entry in the National Register Information System . National Park Service , accessed April 7, 2016
- ^ A b Edmund W. Allen and James S. Bailey: Seismic Rehabilitation of the Salt Lake City & County Building using base isolation. (PDF 1.69 MB) In: Proceedings of Ninth World Conferences on Earthquake Engineering. August 2, 1988, p. 2 , accessed July 3, 2011 (English, Tokyo and Kyoto, Volume V).
- ^ Salt Lake City & County Building. In: The World's Building Website . Emporis Corporation, accessed June 29, 2011 .