Tag: nevadastatecapitolbuilding

Photo by Flickr user BBkld

No Safe Place has put up more pictures of the Nevada State Capitol Building, and the rebuilding work that was done during the 1970s. This is Part 7, where they finally start putting the thing back together.

Photo by Flickr user BBkld

No Safe Place is really stretching this series out. In the late 1970s the Nevada State Capitol was gutted down to an empty shell, and rebuild to modern standards. He's come across the photos taken during the project and has been posting them over the last two months. Today comes Part 6: The Walls Go Up.

Photo by Flickr user BBkld

More to come, and I can't get enough!

Photo by Flickr user BBkld

No Safe Place has a look at the Capitol Building during the 1970s, when the whole building was gutted and rebuilt with modern materials and techniques. The result is a new earthquake-proof building inside the old shell of the old Capitol.

Photo by Flickr user BBkld

No Safe Place continues its look at historic pictures of the Nevada State Capitol Building with Nevada State Capital: The Interiors. Pretty much exactly what it sounds like.

The flag on the Nevada State Capitol at half mast May 6, 2009, in honor of U.S. Army Specialist Jeremiah P. McCleery, who died May 2 in Iraq.

www.rgj.com/article/20090505/NEWS/90505046/1321/NEWS

Photo by Flickr user BBkld

No Safe Place has a great post this week, looking at the progression of the Nevada State Capitol Building over the years. Starting with the 1870s when it was first built, and going up to the 1970s, when the whole building was gutted down to the brick and put back together with modern materials, to ensure it would be around another hundred years.

The Nevada Appeal today has a front-page story on the earthquake readiness of several of the historic buildings around town. Many of the town's most massive buildings are made of stone, quarried from the state prison over a hundred years ago and put together with the best masonry techniques of the day. But stone buildings don't hold up well in earthquakes, and any of those buildings could have been brought down by a good shake. The Capitol Building, the Old State Printing Office, the Laxalt Building, and the State Museum. All were in danger of falling over with a big enough temblor.

But all of them have since been earthquake-proofed and reinforced, and that's what this article is about. Some of the buildings simply had steel braces and straps installed to hold the walls in place, so that in a quake the whole structure would move as one piece and not be shaken apart. Other buildings had steel rods drilled through their sandstone blocks as a way of reinforcing the structure. But the Capitol had the most drastic work done. In the late 1970s the whole building was gutted. Gutted right down to the stone walls and dirt floor. Then a new steel and concrete framework was built inside the stone, in essence a brand-new building inside the old shell. It was topped off with a fiberglass dome, all the original trim and moldings were put back in, and now we have a practically earthquake-proof Capitol. These photos, from the State Library's website, show the dramatic construction work being done.

I know it looks like overkill, but the alternative, bandied about in the 1950s and 60s, was to demolish the Capitol and replace it with post-war office buildings. So possibly they made the right choice.