Our visit to Lansing Michigan began with a trip to Impression 5. Impression 5 is a children’s museum.
The museum is very interactive. It includes numerous displays about water power. They also use water to display fluid dynamics. This display clearly shows an eddy formed by spinning water.
They also have an area dedicated to construction and design. We got to build a bridge that could support a “large” dump truck.
The capitol was only a short walk from the museum. This capitol was built in the 1870’s.
Like most capitols, its design is based on the US Capitol building.
The capitol is beautiful on the inside. In the rotunda, they maintain a display of various flags from the history of Michigan. When they did a rehab of the capitol, they discovered that the flag display had deteriorated many of the flags. The originals were sent to a special storage facility to preserve them. The display now has copies of the flags. One of the original flags is displayed in a special case inside the capitol. The original flags are rotated through the special display so that the originals can be saved for a longer period.
The dome has several levels and there are stairs that lead all the way to the top of the dome. The stairs to the last two levels are now closed to the public to preserve the dome and to keep people from the dangers of the narrow and old stairways.
Even the floor of the rotunda area is very intricate. The tiles and the lights provide a great view of the flags display.
The Michigan capitol was built with a little more financial restraint than many capitols. The columns are just as beautiful as those in other capitols, but are painted plaster and other materials rather than marble or granite.
The senate chamber is as detailed as any other, but was still built on a much smaller budget.
Another difference in the architecture is that the house and senate chambers, while not identical, are designed more similarly than in most capitol buildings.
The ceiling in the house chamber has many lighted panels. Each state in the United States has its State seal displayed in one of the ceiling tiles.
This photo shows the New York and North Carolina Seals as displayed in the ceiling tiles.
At the end of the tour, the guide asked us what our favorite capitol visit had been. The answer is, it depends on your measurement of favorite. We said that New York had the most ornate and expensive structure, Maryland had the most historic, and Michigan’s capitol demonstrated that you could have history and great architecture without spending so much of the citizen’s money.