If you have been reading my blog, you may have noticed that I collect pictures of visits to state capitol buildings. Go to the Categories selection box and select “State Capitol Buildings” and you get quite a list over the last few years you can browse through. Not all of them have me in the picture, since often I was there alone and I didn’t have a convenient passer-by help me take my picture.

But today I had some colleagues with me.

Here I am in front of the building. I don’t have a picture of the whole building. This one is different from most capitol buildings I have seen. It does not have a dome, and it’s built in the typical Santa Fee “adobe style” architecture. If they hadn’t pointed the building out to me, I would not even have noticed it – from the outside.

However, I was inside, and I got a great tour of all four levels, with the senate offices, the house offices, the chambers, and the governor’s office.

I must say, of all the capitol buildings I have visited and toured, this is absolutely the most beautiful one. Aligned with the art history of Santa Fe and its hundreds of galleries, the capitol building is an art museum all in itself. Every hallway, every staircase, every office is adorned with world-class art. I could have taken hundreds of pictures, and I am not exaggerating here.

I regret now that I was not smiling on this picture. The buffalo head is made entirely of recycled materials, rags, chains, bottle caps, cans, plastic spoons, newspaper, I could go on. It is a very striking work of art.

Here is another example of modern art, this one right outside of the governor’s office.

Here I am at the door to the governor’s office. No, I didn’t get to meet the governor. However, we walked right in, and the receptionist at the desk welcomed us in and invited us to walk around and check out the artwork.

Visiting the New Mexico capitol building I had the distinct feeling that it was “the people’s house” and it was open to the people. After we went through a security checkpoint, we were free to walk around, all the way into to lobby of the governor’s office.

 

Today I visited the Maine State Capitol in Augusta. Here I am in front of it, from two different sides.

First in the back.

Then in the front, the more “official” side:

 

This morning on my walk to a conference in Indianapolis, I was able to get this shot of the Indiana State Capitol.

This week I visited the State of Louisiana, and as it is my custom, I took a picture of the State Capitol building.

It is 450 feet tall and has 34 stories, which makes it the tallest skyscraper in Baton Rouge and the tallest capitol building in the United States. It was completed in 1931.

 

This morning I was at the Oklahoma State Capitol.

I was really here:

A few weeks ago we were in Alaska, and during a short visit to Juneau, I took a walk up the hill to the government area.

Here is the front view of the Alaska State Capitol:

I walked to my left and just a hundred feet down the street is the State Office Building:

Many years ago I developed a student identification tracking system for the State of Alaska, and I remember many phone calls with folks in Alaska. I assume they work in this building. From where I was standing to take this photo, when I turned around, this was my view: Another angle of the State Capitol:

Then I walked up the street to my left, and just about five minutes up the hill is the Governor’s Mansion:

It’s a nice home right by a city street, just a very short walk from the Capitol and the State Office Building. It seemed very accessible. I could have walked up to the door and knocked, if I had wanted to.

In fact, it’s a very unassuming location. Here is a street picture from the other side of this building:

As you can see, there is just normal street parking of the neighbors. The white building on the right is the Governor’s Mansion.

Of course I didn’t even know the name of the current governor. I had to look it up: Mike Dunleavy. He was a teacher and educator before he entered politics. Here is his Wikipedia page.

Of course, as we all know, the governorship of Alaska became notorious in the 2007 election with Sarah Palin.

I enjoyed my short stroll to check out the government complex in Juneau.

Today during a morning stroll in Albany, New York, I was able to get a nice shot of the State Capitol.

By the time the building was finished in 1899, it was the most expensive building ever constructed in the United States. It took 32 years to complete, which supposedly is longer than it took to build the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Last Friday, during a trip to Austin, Texas, I had some extra time before flying out, so I visited the Blanton Museum of Art on the campus of the University of Texas.

After parking, I noticed I had a great view of the State Capitol Building, albeit from the back side, with some of the downtown Austin buildings visible behind it.

Here is the map of where I was standing when I took that picture, with the arrow showing my position and point of view:

The photograph above is heavily cropped. There was ugly construction everywhere. I could not find a better vantage point to take a picture. And since it was mid-eighties and very humid, I didn’t want to walk too far out of my way. This is what it really looked like: