More than 2 years after a fire that destroyed the Old Capitol dome in the center of the University of Iowa Pentacrest, a new dome is in place. This video was shot by UITV from Phillips hall, I spent many hours in that building and this is the view from my old classroom window. I've compressed the video at 8x so you can see the slow 12 minute sequence in just a minute and a half. Watch the crowds along the bottom and right of the frame. The crane started lifting at 1:25 PM, just as classes were getting out. Students stopped to watch the dome go up, and then rushed off by 1:30 when their next class started.
The fire that destroyed the dome was tragic, nobody can replace solid oak timbers hewn from 19th century Iowa forests and shaped with hand tools. I'm not sure if I approve of the new dome, I saw photos of the wooden structure and it looks like it was designed on a computer. But now that the dome is covered in gold leaf again, it looks more like the original dome. Still, it will take many decades before it gets that weatherbeaten, hail damaged look of our old dome.
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The fire that destroyed the dome was tragic, nobody can replace solid oak timbers hewn from 19th century Iowa forests and shaped with hand tools. I'm not sure if I approve of the new dome, I saw photos of the wooden structure and it looks like it was designed on a computer. But now that the dome is covered in gold leaf again, it looks more like the original dome. Still, it will take many decades before it gets that weatherbeaten, hail damaged look of our old dome.
I watched through binoculars, from the top of the south staircase inside Macbride Hall, where the temperature was very pleasant, and other onlookers were very pleasant, too. Nice to see so much gold leaf floating up, up, up ...