How did the Dome Become the Symbol of Government?

by Karl Kurtz

Standing in the rotunda of the California Capitol looking up at its spectacular dome with a group of people last week, someone asked me the question, How did the dome become the symbol of government?  I couldn't answer the question, so I muttered something vague about the beauty of domes and how they fit the grandeur of most capitol buildings.

When I returned to my office, I looked up "domes, meaning of" in Charles Goodsell's The American Statehouse.  Goodsell is a professor at Virginia Tech's Center for Public Administration and Policy. His book examines the interaction of architecture and politics in American state government. 

Goodsell explains that Thomas Jefferson was enamored of domes and urged that the U.S. Capitol have a dome and that Charles Bulfinch designed the first capitol domes for the Massachusetts State House and the national capitol in Washington.  Bulfinch's national capitol dome was later replaced with a more elaborate one by Thomas U. Walter in the mid-19th century, modeled after St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

Then he reflects on three levels of meaning of domes:

The...instrumental level of meaning is the dome's attention-getting ability from afar.  In some capitols, this feature is augmented by gilding the [exterior].  The...status-marking level is the dome's identification of the building as a government capitol.  In the United States, the association is remarkably universal.  As for the...cosmological [level], one thought that comes to mind is the dome's anthropomorphic resemblance to a giant head of authority seen on the distant horizon, covered perhaps by an antiquated helmet.  E. Baldwin Smith, the leading scholar on domes, indeed points out that one of the ancient cosmological meanings of the dome is that of celestial helmet.  Moreover, as we know, the Latin root of "capitol" is "head." (p. 25)

Goodsell continues with this awesome description of capitol buildings:

...[T]he statehouse articulates the final and inescapable authority of government, and does so in a manner that to many citizens must seem overwhelming.  It is a big building, conspicuously located, laid out with ordered symmetry, festooned with columns and grand porches, entered through heavy doors, and topped by a high dome shaped like a giant head of authority.  Within, the building's highlight is a large sacred space positioned at the physical center of state government.  The rotunda is lavishly decorated with historical murals, heroic statues, exhortative inscriptions, a brilliant celestial vault, and a hanging egg of creation. (p. 34)

So take your choice of dome metaphors: attention-getter, celestial helmet, giant head of authority, celestial vault or hanging egg of creation.  All I know is that I've never seen one I didn't like.

Goodsell's comment that the symbol of the dome as government capitol is "remarkably universal" in the U.S. inspires a trivia question.  There are seven state capitols that don't have either external or internal domes.  Can you name them?  [Answer below the jump.]

Statehouses without domes: Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii (although one can argue that its State Capitol's opening to the sky is the most celestial dome of all), Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota.  You can see photos of all of the domes by architectural photographer Eric Oxendorf here.

[See "More on Statehouse Domes" for a corrected list of capitols without interior or external domes.]

[Photo of California Capitol dome by Eric Oxendorf]