VARIATIONS ON A CAPITOL PLAN

Alabama Heritage, Summer 2005 by Mellown, Robert O

WILLIAM NICHOLS HAD GRAND IDEAS FOR STATE CAPITOL BUILDINGS, WHICH HE FIRST APPLIED IN NORTH CAROLINA, THEN TO THE MAGNIFICENT BUILDING THAT WOULD SERVE AS ALABAMA'S CAPITOL IN TUSCALOOSA.

WILLIAM NICHOLS, an English-born architect who practiced in the South in the first half of the nineteenth century, did much to shape our ideas about what a state capitol should look like. Though his statehouses in North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi have long since been replaced, Nichols's dramatic and symbolic use of architecture to express the ideals of the young republic made an indelible contribution to the development of this uniquely American building type. As Henry Russell Hitchcock and William Seale observed in their Temples of Democracy: The State Capitols of the U.S.A., William Nichols was one of the earliest architects to establish a logical and coherent architectural plan for this new type of government structure. Using his extensive knowledge of late-eighteenth-century English architecture and elements from the national capitol then under construction in Washington, Nichols developed an ideal capitol plan, which he first employed in 1820-24 in his renovation of the North Carolina statehouse in Raleigh. It was given full expression in 1827-31 in his Alabama capitol in Tuscaloosa, and it reached its culmination in 1836-39 in the Mississippi capitol in Jackson.

Nichols moved from his home in Bath, England, to North Carolina at the age of twenty. He had studied construction and design under an uncle, and went straight to work designing buildings in the state. His big break came with the opportunity to create a monument to democracy-a new statehouse. The original two-story, red brick North Carolina capitol, built in Raleigh in 1792-94, was conservative and old-fashioned in design. Beginning in 1820 William Nichols, the newly appointed state architect, completely transformed the modest building into an imposing capitol. He enlarged it, adding a third floor and two projecting pedimented Ionic pseudo-porticoes located to the east and west. To hide the raw red brick of the original structure, Nichols covered the exterior walls with stucco, which was given a faux stone finish to imitate granite. In the center of this Greek cross plan, he placed a rotunda surmounted by a low dome topped by a lantern. The configuration of this dome resembled one of the designs then under consideration for the national capitol in Washington.

The rotunda was truly the raison d'être for the remodeling of this structure, for it would host a large marble statue of George Washington commissioned by the legislature from the leading sculptor of the day, Antonio Canova. The legislators' desire to make a memorial to Washington the focal point of their seat of government in Raleigh was obviously inspired by and paralleled a similar move to honor the first president in the nation's capital.

The only known interior view of William Nichols's North Carolina capitol depicts Canova's statue of Washington situated in the center of the ground floor of the rotunda. The architecture illustrated in the print is probably not entirely accurate, but it clearly shows important details that Nichols later used in his Alabama capitol. These artistic flourishes were commonly used in the Egyptian Revival style, which was first employed in this country by Benjamin Henry Latrobe in an early design for the Library of Congress, then located in the national capitol. In Raleigh, and later in Tuscaloosa, these symbols would have reinforced the idea that the ancient Egyptian civilization formed the basis for western culture. The embellishments very likely reflect Masonic symbolism as well, given the fact that George Washington, William Nichols, and many members of the legislature were Masons. In Masonic tradition the image of a winged sun disk (employed in both capitols) can be interpreted as a reference to a passage in the Old Testament book of Malachi that predicts the coming of a New or Golden Age when righteousness will fill the earth and Paradise will be restored. The disks, therefore, might signify that Washington, as the father of his country, represented the beginning of a new world order.

Though no prints or drawings survive, the remodeled North Carolina house and senate chambers appear to have been influenced by construction on the national capitol, which was undergoing extensive changes and repairs after having been burned by the British during the War of 1812. A Raleigh paper in 1821 described the "Commons Hall" or House Chamber as being "semi-elliptical in form...with a Gallery and Vaulted Ceiling, supported by a Peristyle of Columns." Its configuration, said to be similar to his later and better documented Alabama House Chamber, was almost certainly inspired by one of Benjamin Henry Latrobe's plans for the House of Representatives in Washington.

The same paper described the Senate as being circular in form "with a commodious Gallery, supported by a Peristyle of Columns." Nichols repeated this room configuration in his Alabama building and enlarged it in his Mississippi capitol. Its configuration was not based on that of the U.S. Senate; it seems to have been an original form conceived by the architect. The room's furnishings, however, were definitely influenced by furniture used in Washington. Two Senate chairs that survived an 1831 fire closely resemble those made in 1819 for the U.S. Senate and appear to have been made by the same New York furniture maker.