This lovely fountain is slightly offset from the centerline. I decided to square up the building and let the fountain drift a tad right.

Nebraska State Capitol Building, Lincoln, Nebraska

A photo essay by Charles Haacker.

I have been privileged to live in two state capital cities: twenty-two years in Madison, Wisconsin, and five years in Lincoln, Nebraska. This photo essay features Lincoln’s distinctive Classical office-tower style capitol.

The Nebraska State Capitol, the product of a nationwide design competition won by New York Architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue in 1920, is described as the nation’s first truly vernacular State Capitol. The present building, the third to be erected on this site, was the nation’s first statehouse design to radically depart from the prototypical form of the nation’s Capitol and to use an office tower. Constructed in four phases over ten years from 1922–1932, the building, with furnishings and landscaping, was completed at a cost just under the $10 million budget and was paid for when finished. To decorate the building, Bertram Goodhue selected Lee Lawrie, sculptor; Hildreth Meiere, tile and mosaic designer; and Hartley B. Alexander, thematic consultant for inscription and symbolism.

Clad with Indiana limestone, the Capitol has a low, wide base in the plan of a “cross within a square”, creating four interior courtyards. The square base is 437 feet on a side and three levels in height. From the center of this base rises a 400 foot domed tower, crowned with the 19 foot tall bronze figure of “The Sower”. A thematic progression of ornamentation extends from the principal entrance on the north, westward around the exterior of the building and through the building’s interior. The building’s exterior stone carvings represent historic events in the 3000 year evolution of democracy as a form of government. The ornamental interior features numerous marble-columned chambers with vaulted polychrome tile ceilings, marble mosaic floors and murals depicting the natural and social history of Nebraska’s Native American and Pioneer cultures.
— History of Nebraska’s Capitols

West Portal, nearing sunset.

It will not surprise you that Lincoln is named for Abraham Lincoln, who shepherded our sundered nation through its Civil War and was murdered in 1865.

Living in a state capital affords endless opportunities to photograph the building from the exterior, at any time of day, in any weather. But I am a big chicken and prefer good weather, preferably warm, not raining or snowing. I have promised myself to make an appointment to shoot the interior.

I love the building, especially the central tower. I try to do something a little different each time I walk the square.

Here is my buddy, The Sower, soaring another thirty-two feet above the 400-foot tower. I have a 300mm lens now, so it is time to go back and see him again.

Atop the 400 foot tower of the Nebraska State Capitol stands a figure casting
the seeds of life to the winds….the Sower. The statue of the Sower, modeled
after the traditional method of hand sowing grain for planting, is a symbol of
the importance of Agriculture to the development of civilization. Agriculture
is the foundation upon which Nebraskans have built a noble life.
The monumental sculpture, with its 12 and 1/2 foot pedestal of shocks of
wheat and corn and 19 1/2 foot tall figure, was created by New York
sculptor, Lee Lawrie. Lawrie represents this timeless symbol of Agriculture
as a barefoot man, shirt sleeves and pant legs rolled up as he works, wearing
a sun hood. The 3/8 inch thick bronze sculpture is reinforced by an interior
steel framework and weighs nearly 9 1/2 tons. — Capitol.nebraska.gov/files/sower-sculpture

The detailed memorial to Abraham Lincoln is at the West Portal of the structure. I try to work a scene, not stopping with one or two exposures.

Sunup was a great time to photograph. I love the massive Art Deco adornments on all faces of the building. Monumental.

I have even ventured out at night to feed the mosquitoes and make pictures at very long range. The capitol tower is five miles distant from where I was standing. I used my newly acquired 300mm mentioned earlier. It is a composite. The full moon was rising, just not where I wanted it, so I cheated, and while I was at it, I enlarged it a little. Okay, a lot.

How the composite was assembled — The rising moon was legit, just refused to be behind the tower where I wanted it.

An earlier night shot. The rising moon was where you see it, but the challenge was to balance the exposure for the building and the moon, which was many stops brighter than the façade lit only by its mercury vapor floodlights.

A little Photoshop sleight-of-hand.

I hope you enjoyed. Thanks to all who’ve looked and read!