Preview
Date
3-1-1980
Description
Work on the Rhode Island State House began in 1892, the design being awarded to McKim, Mead & White, the winners of a competition judged by The Board of State House Commissioners under the advice of A. D. F. Hamlin, Richard Morris Hunt, and Alpheus C. Morse. Prior to it's completion, Rhode Island used a rotation system in which the governor and legislature would move between different state houses, at one time including as many as five. By the later half of the 19th century, only the Old Providence State House and the Newport Colony House were used. This view, taken from the Francis and Gaspee Street perspective, clearly presents McKim, & Mead & Whites "American Renaissance" design, which incorporated Renaissance and Classical design elements in rejection of Victorian era designs, which McKim felt were gaudy and whose ornamentation he felt was idiosyncratic.
Creator 1 Role
Photographer
Creator 2 Role
Architect
Building Type
Government buildings
Building Style
Neoclassical
Country Name
United States
Region Name
Rhode Island
City Name
Providence
Street Address
82 Smith Street
Recommended Citation
Thomson, Debra and McKim, Mead & White, "The Rhode Island State House" (1980). Images of Rhode Island Architecture from Special Collections. 7.
https://digitalcommons.ric.edu/ri_architecture/7
Keywords
state capitol; State House; renaissance; classical; neoclassical; neoclassical; mckim, mead & white; dome; architecture;
Notes
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ). For more information contact Digital Initiatives at James P. Adams Library, (401) 456-8380, Rhode Island College, 600 Mount Pleasant Ave., Providence, RI, 02903, digitalcommons@ric.edu.