Alabama Capitol Featured

May 31, 2011

Alabama’s capitol building in Montgomery is featured in the new photography book Fifty State Capitols: The Architecture of Representative Government.

The book gives Alabama’s capitol special recognition for its Greek Revival style and unique dome.  The capitol of Alabama is one of just five images appearing on the book’s front cover.

Fifty State Capitolsis an intimate look at the central government building in each of the fifty states.  It has synopses of each state’s history with detail about how the architecture of the building contributes to the success of American-style representative government.

The architects who designed state capitols—including Thomas Jefferson, Charles Bulfinch, and Cass Gilbert in addition to the Colorado capitol’s Elijah Myers—looked for forms and features symbolic of democracy, finding them most often in ancient Greece and Rome.  The columns and dome of the Alabama capitol symbolize these classical qualities.

Author/photographer Jim Stembridge of Salem, Oregon, visited each of America’s state capitols to document the domes, rotundas, legislative chambers, grand stairways, skylights, and public galleries that are both symbolic of, and essential to, the operation of democratic governance.  The result is this collection of exterior views, interior details, and pithy narratives featuring every one of the nation’s fifty state capitols.

Fifty State Capitols is available through the website www.fiftystatecapitols.com and at the Friends of the Alabama Archives Gift Shop across the street from the Capitol.

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Fifty State Capitols: The Architecture of Representative Government by Jim Stembridge

ISBN 9780983029205

128 pp, 9”x12”,  softbound,  276 color photographs,  glossary,  index,  references

Publisher: Coho Publishing of Salem, Oregon        

Retail price: $27.95

Publication Date: June 6, 2011    Media materials at  www.fiftystatecapitols.com

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