Maine State House
The Art and Architecture of the State House
The Maine State House is located in Augusta Maine along the Kennebec River, about 40 miles inland and half way up the state’s southeast coast bordering the Atlantic Ocean. New Hampshire is to the west, with Quebec and New Brunswick Canada forming the remaining northwest and northeast borders. Maine is called the Pine Tree State with over 80% of the land area either forested or unclaimed. It features a rugged coastline with deep bays, interior lakes, rolling hills and mountains formed from melting glaciers after the last ice age. Maine is the largest of the New England states by land area, and the most rural state with most of the population living along the southeast coast. After the American Revolution in 1788, the land area of Maine was part of Massachusetts, but in 1820 the people voted to secede becoming the Union’s 23rd state. This was accomplished through the Missouri Compromise, which admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, and prohibiting slavery in the remaining lands of the Louisiana Purchase.
The original capital city was Portland from 1820 to 1831. In 1827 it was decided to move the capital to Augusta so it would be more centrally located for most of the population areas along the southeast coast. State House construction began and was completed in 1832 in a Federal architectural style by Charles Bulfinch. Its design included some simple Greek Revival influences, and was based on the design Bulfinch used for the Massachusetts State House, but constructed of granite from a quarry in Hallowell about 3 miles west, instead of brick.
Charles Bulfinch, 1763 to 1844, was among the first American architects. He was from Boston Massachusetts where he was educated at the Boston Latin School and Harvard University. From 1785 to 1788 he studied and toured in Europe including London, Paris, and Italy. He is noted for the origin of the Federal architectural style, and for his designs of the Massachusetts State House, Connecticut’s Old State House, the United States Capitol rotunda and dome, the State House in Maine, and numerous churches and residential projects in the Boston area.
In 1910, major additions were completed on the State House, including the replacement of a cupola over the rotunda with a large dome in a Greek Revival style by the architect Henri Desmond, giving it the appearance that it has today.
The additions extended the wings of the capitol to each side for the House and Senate Chambers and rebuilt the west wing, preserving the semicircular feature from an earlier addition by an unidentified architect.
Desmonds design preserved the character of the original building by Bulfinch using both the Federal and Greek Revival styles and its construction in granite, reminiscent of many capitol projects across the country.
George Henri Desmond, 1874 to 1965, was born in Watertown Massachusetts, and educated in Boston. In 1912 he formed a partnership with Israel Lord in Boston where he designed Maine’s first skyscraper, the Fidelity Trust Building in Portland Maine, and the dome on the Maine State House.
The dome is supported by 16 columns between 16 windows representing the 16 counties in Maine. All of the columns on the State House were derived from the simplest columns in the Greek and Roman order, the Doric and Etruscan, which is a distinct characteristic of the State House, simplicity. The copper dome is capped with a smaller cupola and the sculpture “Wisdom” made of copper and coated in a burnished gold gilding. It is based on the allegorical figure Minerva and was created by the sculptor William Clark Noble.
William Clark Noble, 1858 to 1938, was born in Gardiner Maine, and studied with American sculptors Horatio Greenough and Lorado Taft. Noble is noted for many military sculptures and coinage for Guatemala and Panama.
The Capitol grounds are somewhat restricted with no easy access from the front or sides. Instead the visitor entrance is in the back on the west side between the Capitol and the Cross State Office Building.
First Floor
After passing through security there is a Welcome Center (1) where I signed up for a guided tour, a visitor orientation meeting room, gallery space, and stairs with elevators to the upper levels (2), and a stair down to a tunnel (14) leading over to the Cross building.
Notice the black limestone bands in the floors throughout the building. They are from La Motte Vermont and feature fossils formation from over 475 million years ago.
On this visit the gallery featured a collection of artwork through the Illustration Institute, which included the work of Portland artist Daniel Minter on the Afro-Atlantic world titled “So Tall Within: Sojourner Truth’s Long Walk Toward Freedom”.
Second Floor
On the second floor is the Hall of Flags (3) and the main front entrance (4) with museum space leading to the Governor’s offices (5), a Grand Staircase (6), and the State Library in the north wing and legislative committee rooms in the south wing.
The Hall of Flags has displays of battle flags used by the regiments from Maine, along with memorials to those that served in those wars. The flags are duplicates, with the originals kept in the Maine State Museum.
Included in the center of the Hall is a bust of Percival Proctor Baxter, 1876 to 1969, who served as president of the senate and then as governor from 1921 to 1925. He was noted as among the first animal rights promoters in the country, and regularly brought his dog, Garry Owen, to work with him. Baxter was a conservationist and donated lands that became Baxter State Park and included Mt. Katahdin, the tallest peak in Maine and the terminus of the Appalachian Trail. The bust is by an unidentified sculptor.
Also found in the Hall of Flags is a bas-relief of Harold Taylor Andrews, 1893 to 1917, who became the first soldier from Maine killed in World War 1. The sculptor was Victor Kahili, 1930.
The Governor’s offices are located on the second floor in the west wing beyond the Grand Staircase. These offices are in active use so they were not accessible for tours or photographs.
State Library
The Law and Legislative Reference Library in the north wing includes legislative and law records, and is open to the public. Above the entrance to the Library are three sculptural panels cut to form pine trees.
The state tree is the White Pine, and so the panels represent the White Pine. It was reported to be made from the original copper removed from the dome during a recent renovation and created by an unidentified artist.
Third Floor
The third floor from the Grand Staircase leads through a reception area (7) and to the rotunda (8). The landing on the Grand Staircase includes a portrait of George Washington by Thomas Truman Spear, 1836.
The reception area for the various state offices features a fireplace with a sculptural relief depicting Union Soldiers. It was modeled from a section of the architectural sculpture on the National Building Museum in Washington DC, by sculptor Caspar Buberi, 1887.
Caspar Buberi, 1834 to 1899, was an American sculptor from Königsberg Bohemia in the Czech Republic. He studied in Prague and Vienna, before immigrating to New York in 1854. Buberi is noted for his many Civil War sculptures, and the architectural sculpture on the National Building Museum that forms a 1200 foot long frieze, depicting 28 scenes.
The rotunda opens up from the third floor to the fourth floor and the dome above. It features access to the veranda (9) over the front entrance with a beautiful view over Capitol Park. The House Chamber (10) is in the north wing, and the Senate Chamber (11) is in the south wing along with more state offices there and in the west wing.
The view up into the dome reveals the fourth floor with portraits of former justices, and a fifth level service access stair to the dome. The third floor usually features portraits of former governors, but they had been removed for renovation work that was in progress on this tour. Note that in both the interior and exterior the detailing is simple with little or no ornamentation. This is a characteristic of the people governing Maine, to keep things simple.
House Chamber
The House Chamber is on the third floor of the north wing providing desk seating for 151 representatives, and a visitors gallery accessible from the fourth floor. Members also include three non-voting representatives from Native Americans, the Penobscot Nation, the Passamaquoddy Tribe, and the Houlton Band of Maliseets.
The chamber features pilasters with capitals based on the Corinthian columns and is perhaps the most decorative ornamentation found throughout the building.
Senate Chamber
The Senate Chamber is in the south wing and provides desk space for 35 senators. The public gallery accessible from the fourth floor is closed, but some visitor seating is available across the back of the room.
Fourth Floor
The fourth floor rotunda includes portraits of former justices, more office areas, and access to the public gallery in the House Chamber.
Service access stairs to the dome can be seen to a fifth level and then up to the underside of the dome.
Capitol Grounds
The Capitol Grounds has no significant monuments immediately around the building except for the “Votes for Women” monument on the southwest side. It was established to honor suffragist in Maine that worked from 1857 to 1919 for women’s rights, which led to ratification of the 19th Amendment securing their right to vote.
On the west side behind the State House is the Cross State Office Building, which is connected by a tunnel between the two. The tunnel to the Cross building features several exhibits and artistic works that led me to the Cross Cafe where I had lunch. In addition to the connecting tunnel there is said to be a side tunnel that was not accessible, but is reported to include a fallout shelter large enough to hold the senate, house, and other state officials.
The Cross State Office Building was completed in 1954, and named after former governor Burton Melvin Cross, 1902 to 1998, who was instrumental in having the facility built. It is a granite clad building, like the Capitol, but designed in an International architectural style popular in the 1950s. It was designed by Miller and Beal Architects with Desmond and Lord Architects.
The tunnel features a granite mural titled Communiqué by artist Evan Haynes, and four Dioramas titled Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn, by Klir Beck.
Communiqué is a granite relief sculpture depicting various forms of communication including the written language used in Maine by the English and French, and Native Americans, Passamaquoddy, Penobscot and Abenaki.
The theme along the south wall is Light and Sight, which depicts the allegorical figure of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom holding a torch, and the Pantheon with its domed roof and open center called the oculus, or eye, representing a lens.
The theme along the north wall is speech and hearing and includes a large head in the act of speaking, and a large ear for hearing. The writing displayed in the various languages express the importance of communication in government.
Evan W. Haynes is an artist and mechanical designer based in Maine. He was educated at Franconia College, the University of Pennsylvania, Portland School of Art, and Maine University, and worked as an artist in residence in Maine and New Zealand.
Simplicity is nice and beautiful, but there is a lack of art in the Capitol. That is changing like this piece by Haynes. It was funded through the Maine Percent for Art Act where the state has set aside 1% of the state’s budget for public art projects.
There are four dioramas along the tunnel corridor created in the 1950s by Klir Beck depicting nature in the four seasons. Beck’s career in Maine for the Fish and Game Department, the Economic Development Commission, and the Maine State Museum created numerous displays used at events across the country promoting the beauty and great outdoors that can be found in Maine.
Klir A. Beck, 1892 to 1966, was born in Pennsylvania and studied in California, New York, and Paris. He worked on Depression-era artwork and at the National Zoo in Washington DC. In the late 1930s he moved to Maine where he became a noted artist, master craftsman, and curator at the Maine State Museum.
In the Cross building adjacent to the Cross Cafe are two additional sculptural works, City of Dreams, and Reflections.
City of Dreams 1 and 2, by Wallace Warren, presents an imaginary city scape constructed of recycled materials that were discarded from electronic parts to become complex images of an imaginary landscape.
Reflections, by Elizabeth Busch, uses textile paint and metal leaf on canvas to create the idea of bends and turns of reflective thought.
To the north of the Capitol, across the street is the Executive Mansion known as the Blaine House, which was donated to the state in 1919 by the Blaine family.
It was designed and built in 1833 by James Hall, a ship captain, and later purchased by James Blaine, a former Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives. In 1921 a remodeling to its present design as the Governor’s Mansion was completed by the architect John Calvin Stevens.
In front of the Capitol on the east side is Capitol Park, which extends down to the Kennebec River. The park includes the Maine Vietnam Veterans Memorial dedicated to those that served in the war. It was designed by Roger Richards, 1985.
On the south side of the State House is the Cultural Building, also known as the State Library, Museum and Archives Building. Most of the records and exhibits that were once housed in the State House were moved to this building except the legislative and law records in the State Library still located in the State House. The Cultural Building was closed on this visit due to renovation work in progress, but there is one sculpture on display out front, that of Samantha Smith by sculptor Glen Hines.
Samantha Reed Smith, 1972 to 1985, was a child peace activist and actor from Maine. In 1982 she wrote a letter of peace to Yuri Andropov the leader of the Soviet Union. In response her family was invited to the Soviet Union, which they accepted. The result many believe led to the thaw of Cold War tensions between the two countries.
You will find many artist in Maine due to the natural beauty and its popularity as a tourist destination. The State House has a simplistic beauty of its own as does not need the ornamentation that many have. In contrast though, the Percent for Art program is a good thing and hopefully will yield more paintings, murals, sculptures and monuments in and around the State House and other public facilities in the years to come.
Travel Notes
If you take the tunnel from the State House to the Cross building you will find the Cross Cafe where the cooks prepared a fresh ham sandwich lunch for me just the way I like it. Check it out!
Maine is a beautiful state that my wife and I have explored every year for the past several years on week long family vacations. Our family continues to grow, and so do the rental houses we seek out. Acadia National Park is perhaps our favorite destination, exploring the trails and watching a different life moving across the bays. After all these years I had never made it to the Maine State House even though we pass right by on our trips to and from Boston. The problem has been that the rentals run from weekend to weekend, and the State House is closed on the weekends. So, this year we stayed over in Boston an extra week and I picked out a weekday to travel back to Augusta.
I traveled to the State House on this day trip out of Boston where we have family. There are plenty of charging stops along the way, this one being at the Kennebunk Service Plaza along Interstate 95.
Notes and References
Story and photographs by David Smitherman, with data collected from onsite inscriptions and brochures, Wikipedia, and Google Maps. Site visits were made in August 2024.
Maine State House by Bulfinch is an image from a historic color postcard from the Maine Historic Preservation Commission Collection.
A Brief History of the Maine State House: https://legislature.maine.gov/general/history-of-the-state-house/9137
Burton Cross State Office Building: https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/architectural-site/3075
The Illustration Institute: www.illustrationinstitute.org
“While Visiting at the State House” Senate publication, July 2010.