The Texas Facilities Commission is a Texas state agency.
50-698: TFC's main duty is to manage state government buildings (excluding those operated by universities, the Texas State Capitol , and the Governor's Mansion ). TFC also handles the sale of surplus property and manages the Federal Surplus Program on behalf of the State and qualified local and non-profit agencies. The TFC was originally established in 1919 as the State Board of Control, which mandated consolidation of
100-489: A rain screen . Anchorage systems are superior for exterior use because they permit any water that permeates the veneer to escape, while air space allows the materials of the supporting substrate wall to expand and contract at different rates to those of the veneer. The dowel anchorage system is one such method of hanging veneer. The system relies on holes drilled into the edges of stone panels in which metal dowels are inserted. The dowels are connected to an angle bracket that
150-643: A comprehensive interior and exterior restoration of the original building was completed at a cost of about $ 98 million. In 1997, the park-like grounds surrounding the capitol received an $ 8 million renovation and restoration. In 2016 the Texas Capitol Complex began a master renovation project. Involving the participation and collaboration of The Texas Facilities Commission, the Partnership Advisory Commission, Texas General Land Office, Texas State Preservation Board, Texas Historical Commission,
200-462: A concrete-type base. These stone cladding products are often fitted to lightweight substrates to reduce the material cost of construction; this would typically comprise Then, using a mortar mix, the stone cladding would be affixed to the wall. In the US, a typical installation on a lightweight substrate would use plywood backing as an alternative to fibre cement sheet. Alternatively, stone cladding can be
250-426: A fashion that "it does not have the appearance of being a part of a composite stone veneered product." The stone veneer was able to be cut to a thickness of 1 ⁄ 8 inch (3.2 mm) in the 1980s because of improvements in technology . The thickness of typical thin stone veneer was three centimeters by the early 2000s. Anchors of support were provided by a specific type of stainless steel or "of aluminum with
300-611: A fire also in 1899. Construction of the Italian Renaissance Revival –style capitol was funded by an article of the state constitution, adopted on February 15, 1876, which authorized the sale of public lands for the purpose. In one of the largest barter transactions of recorded history, the builders of the capitol ( John V. Farwell and Charles B. Farwell ), known as the Capitol Syndicate, were paid with more than three million acres (12,000 km ) of public land in
350-616: A large portrait of David Crockett , a painting depicting the surrender of General Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto , and sculptures of Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin made by Elisabet Ney . The Texas Confederate Museum was held in a room on the first floor from its opening in 1903 until 1920, when it was moved into the General Land Office Building (today the Capitol Visitors Center). The Capitol building
400-435: A lightweight concrete mix into rubber forms and painted with a coloring process which makes it resemble real stone. The stone veneer produced is then attached to walls with special mortars . Flexible stone veneer is fabricated by pulling a thin layer of stone from a slab of slate, sandstone, or mica schist. It is backed by a composite material. Stone cladding often consists of a lightweight simulated stone products with
450-407: A list of protected " Capitol View Corridors " along which construction would not be permitted, so as to protect the capitol's visibility from a series of points around Austin. The bill was signed into law on May 3, 1983, defining 30 state-protected viewing corridors and prohibiting any construction that would intersect one of them. The City of Austin has adopted similar rules, so that the majority of
500-455: A new office wing should be added. The logical place for an addition was the plaza immediately to the north; however, a large building there would have eliminated the historic north façade and covered what had traditionally been seen as an important public space. Instead, an expansion to the capitol was built beneath the north plaza, connecting to the existing capitol underground. In 1993, the $ 75 million, four-story, underground capitol extension
550-406: A non-corroding material separator between the metal and stone." These anchors are attached to the back of the panels with a rod. There are a variety of systems for attaching stone veneers to facades including dowel, kerf, and undercut anchoring systems as well as direct fixing. The direct or adhered fixing system relies on a mortar or cement bonding between the substrate wall and the backside of
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#1732869392171600-618: A shelf outside to support the building's limestone veneer. One and a half inches (38 mm) became the common thickness of stone veneer in the 1930s. The utilization of thin stone veneer for complete facades of buildings popped up in the 1940s. Stone veneer construction became much of what we see today in the 1950s. Transportation improved, so stone veneer was transported more efficiently and at lower costs than ever before. Methods to attach veneer to steel were developed; diamond-bladed tools became popular for developing thin stone veneer, while elastomeric sealant began to replace mortar techniques in
650-400: Is a thin layer of any stone used as decorative facing material that is not meant to be load bearing. Stone cladding is a stone veneer, or simulated stone, applied to a building or other structure made of a material other than stone. Stone cladding is sometimes applied to concrete and steel buildings as part of their original architectural design. Thin stone veneer was first developed in
700-452: Is in turn connected by anchor bolts to the building's load-bearing wall or steel frame. Kerf anchorage systems operate in much the same way with different metal hardware. The kerf system uses grooves cut into the edges of stone veneer panels in which kerf plates or cleats are inserted, those plates are mounted to the wall behind and act much like a shelf on which the stone panel rests. Both the dowel and Kerf anchorage systems can be attached to
750-549: Is now limited to emergency and service vehicles. The lawn panels continue from 18th Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard with travel lanes for vehicular drop off. The Texas State Capitol and grounds are located on a hilltop overlooking downtown Austin , with the main entrance facing onto the Congress Avenue Historic District to the south, for which it forms a terminating vista . The northern edge of
800-556: Is surrounded by 22 acres (8.9 ha) of grounds scattered with statues and monuments. William Munro Johnson, civil engineer, was hired in 1888 to improve the appearance of the grounds. By the time the first monument, commemorating the Heroes of the Alamo , was installed in 1891, the major components of Johnson's plan were in place. These included a "Great Walk" of black and white diamond-patterned pavement shaded by trees. The four oldest monuments are
850-649: The Heroes of the Alamo Monument (1891), Volunteer Firemen Monument (1896), Confederate Soldiers Monument (1903) and Terry's Texas Rangers Monument (1907), and these flank the tree-lined Great Walk. In the spring of 2013, ground was broken for the Texas Capitol Vietnam Veterans Monument ; dedication took place on March 29, 2014. A granite monument of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of
900-518: The Texas Panhandle ; this tract later became the largest cattle ranch in the world, the XIT Ranch . The value of the land, combined with expenses , added to a total cost of $ 3.7 million for the original building. It was constructed largely by convicts or migrant workers, as many as a thousand at a time. The building has been renovated several times, with central air conditioning installed in 1955 and
950-644: The United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. The capitol was ranked 92nd in the 2007 " America's Favorite Architecture " poll commissioned by the American Institute of Architects . The current Texas State Capitol is the fourth building to serve that purpose in Austin. The first was a two-room wooden structure (located on the northeast corner of 8th St and Colorado St) which served as the national capitol of
1000-408: The Austin area. The project's 900 workers included 86 granite cutters brought from Scotland . The cornerstone for the building was laid on March 2, 1885, Texas Independence Day , and the building was opened to the public on April 21, 1888, San Jacinto Day , before its completion. The building was officially dedicated by Texas State Senator Temple Houston on May 18, 1888. The dedication ceremony
1050-669: The Capitol Extension), more than any other state capitol building, and rests on a 2.25-acre (0.91 ha) footprint. The building has nearly 400 rooms and more than 900 windows. The interior of the central portion forms an open rotunda beneath the dome. Massive cast-iron staircases flanking the rotunda connect the various levels of the building. The two chambers of the Texas Legislature (the Texas Senate and Texas House of Representatives ) meet in large, double-height spaces in
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#17328693921711100-581: The Central Services Building in Austin . This Texas -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Texas State Capitol The Texas State Capitol is the capitol and seat of government of the U.S. state of Texas . Located in downtown Austin, Texas , the structure houses the offices and chambers of the Texas Legislature and of the Governor of Texas . Designed in 1881 by architect Elijah E. Myers , it
1150-577: The City of Austin enacted a local ordinance limiting the height of new buildings to a maximum of 200 feet (61 m), aiming to preserve the visual preeminence of the capitol. From that time until the early 1960s, only the University of Texas Main Building Tower was built higher than the limit, but in 1962, developers announced a new 261-foot (80 m) high-rise residential building to be built adjacent to
1200-502: The Late 19th and early 20th centuries non-load-bearing stone veneers were regularly affixed to load-bearing walls behind. As buildings began to grow taller with the advent of skeletal steel framing , it became necessary to diminish the thickness and weight of masonry walls in order to withstand the dead weight of the building. Without steel supports, load bearing walls could grow several meters thick on their lowest stories. A solution employed in
1250-577: The State's purchasing, printing, and property management functions. The State Purchasing and General Services Commission replaced the State Board of Control in September 1979. The agency's name was changed again in 1991 to the General Services Commission. The General Services Commission (GSC), the TBPC's immediate predecessor, was abolished in 2001 by the 77th Legislature. TFC has its headquarters in
1300-561: The Texas Republic and continued as the seat of government upon Texas' admission to the Union. The second Texas capitol was built of limestone in 1853, on the same site as the present capitol in Austin; it was destroyed by fire in 1881, but plans had already been made to replace it with a new, much larger structure. A temporary capitol was then constructed across the street at 11th St and Congress Ave in 1882. The temporary capitol later burned down in
1350-569: The Texas State Capitol was the topic of a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court case, Van Orden v. Perry , in which the display was challenged as unconstitutional . In late June 2005, the Court in a 5–4 ruling declared that the display was not unconstitutional. For visitors, the Capitol and downtown Austin feature several convenient garages along with on street parking. Stone cladding Stone veneer
1400-509: The capitol grounds lies four blocks south of the University of Texas at Austin . The capitol is a roughly rectangular building with a four-story central block, symmetrical three-story wings extending to the east and west, and a dome rising from the center. It is built in an Italian Renaissance Revival style and modeled on the design of the United States Capitol , but with its exterior clad with local red granite . It contains 360,000 square feet (33,000 m ) of floor space (not including
1450-577: The capitol, called the Westgate Tower . Governor Price Daniel voiced his opposition to the proposed tower, and State Representative Henry Grover of Houston introducing a bill to condemn the property, which was defeated in the Texas House of Representatives by only two votes. The Westgate was eventually completed in 1966, but the controversy over the preservation of the capitol's visual presence that dogged its construction continued to grow. The Westgate
1500-490: The centers of the two wings on the second floor, overlooked by public galleries on the third floor. The remainder of the building is filled with office space, courts, and archives; additional offices fill the underground extension. The central rotunda is hung with portraits of all the past presidents of the Republic of Texas and governors of the State of Texas; the rotunda is also a whispering gallery . The south foyer features
1550-424: The construction of early skyscrapers was the use of a steel structural frame that supported exterior stone walls at every floor, thereby distributing the load into the frame. This avoided a gradual buildup of weight that resulted in inconveniently thick lower walls. The Empire State Building uses this method, having two steel beams for attaching stone veneer on each floor; one inside to bear weight, and one acting as
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1600-530: The construction process. Thin stone veneer in the 1960s became more of a standardized look – in fact, standard education on stone veneer became available in The Marble Engineering Handbook and Marble-Faced Precast Panels , which were published by the Marble Institute of America and National Association of Marble Producers. As stone veneer panels got thinner in the 1960s, the properties of
1650-427: The corridors are also protected under municipal zoning code, as well as under state law. On February 6, 1983, a fire began in the apartment of William P. Hobby Jr. , then the state lieutenant governor . A guest of Hobby's was killed, and four firemen and a policeman were injured by the subsequent blaze. The capitol was crowded with accumulated archives, and the fire was intense and came dangerously close to destroying
1700-417: The late 1800s. The oldest of modern stone veneer product is now disintegrating. It was cut into thick portions and then hand tooled into the appropriate panels; the stones that were used were "granite, marble, travertine, limestone, and slate." Early in its development, thin stone veneer only had the capabilities to be utilized in areas such as the inside of buildings, street-level facades and storefronts. In
1750-490: The late 19th century, but there were materials developed much earlier that foreshadowed its use. For instance, the ancient Romans built large structures out of Roman concrete , and sometimes used a form of stone veneer to face them. Parts of the Roman Coliseum were originally faced with marble veneer; the holes which once held the anchors for the veneer are still visible. Modern stone veneer first made its appearance in
1800-540: The most recent refurbishments completed in 1997. The designers originally planned for the building to be clad entirely with hill country limestone quarried in Oatmanville (present-day Oak Hill ), about 10 miles (16 km) to the southwest. However, the high iron content of the limestone led it to discolor rapidly with rust stains when exposed to the elements. Learning of the problem, business partners George W. Lacy, Nimrod L. Norton, and William H. Westfall, who were
1850-605: The original zinc statue, was placed on the dome in June 1986 by the Mississippi National Guard , since Texas lacked the capacity to lift the approx. 3,000-pound statue. The original statue was restored and displayed on the Capitol grounds in a special structure built for it in 1995; it was later moved to the Bullock Texas State History Museum in 2001. The Old Texas Land Office , on the Capitol grounds,
1900-485: The owners of Granite Mountain near Marble Falls , offered to donate to the state, free of charge, the necessary amount of sunset red (also known as pink) granite to sheathe the building. A new 2.3 mile (3.7 km) spur of the Austin and Northwestern Railroad was constructed to transport the stone from Granite Mountain Quarry to the Austin train terminal. This new branch of the railway line had one fault however: there
1950-625: The project sought to create the Texas Mall—an expansion of the Capitol Extension open space. Another goal was to address the rising cost of leased office space for state agencies which were then dispersed around the city by concentrating them in State-owned facilities. After the project completion, Congress Avenue became a pedestrian-only tree-lined mall with lawn panels extending north of 15th Street to 18th Street. Vehicular access for these blocks
2000-470: The stone used became more important in order to compensate (as did safety considerations). Concrete as an aid to stone veneer continued to develop, as "in order to eliminate bowing, cracking, and staining of the veneer." "Diamond-studded cables" were used to cut Italian marble into the necessary slabs as a part of an era of specialization in the 1970s. A 1976 patent shows that the stone material of composite stone veneer could be finished and developed in such
2050-458: The stone veneer. This application is generally used indoors as exterior weathering and temperature extremes cause the veneer to crack and spall . The complete connection between the veneer and substrate does not account for differing rates of thermal expansion between materials, causing them to bind under pressure. Most exterior veneer systems hang stone from a support wall by pins and anchors allowing air space between, essentially using stone as
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2100-456: The structure. It caused severe damage to the east wing and compromised much of the framing, which was largely composed of exposed cast iron posts and beams. Following the fire, the state took advantage of the extensive rebuilding to update the mechanical and structural systems to modern standards. In November 1985, the original Goddess of Liberty statue on top of the dome was removed by helicopter. A new statue, cast of aluminum in molds made from
2150-452: The top, bottom and sides of each panel ensuring a secure hold and binding the panels together to make a complete veneer. A fourth and somewhat less common anchoring system is the Undercut anchoring system which uses an expansion ring on the end of a bolt to lock into an undercut hole in the back of a veneer panel. Pressure from tightening the bolt causes the expansion ring to flare out, filling
2200-416: The undercut hole. The bolt is then affixed to anchorage system connected to the supporting wall behind. Stone veneer can be made from natural stone as well as manufactured stone. Natural stone veneer is made from real stone that is either collected, i.e. fieldstone , or quarried. The stone is cut to a consistent thickness and weight for use as a veneer. Manufactured stone veneer is fabricated by pouring
2250-426: Was a bend in the tracks that was a bit too sharp and trains would occasionally derail, accidentally dumping some of the pink granite. Many of the fallen rocks remain in place and are a local point of interest. Oak Hill limestone does comprise much of the Capitol but most is hidden behind the walls or is in the foundations. Granite Mountain red (or pink) granite was subsequently used for many state government buildings in
2300-440: Was completed to the north, doubling the square footage available to capitol occupants and providing much-improved functionality. Though the extension encompasses 667,000 square feet (62,000 m ) (nearly twice the floor space of the original building), little evidence exists of such a large structure at ground level, except for extensive skylights camouflaged as planter rows, and the four-story, open-air, inverted rotunda. In 1995,
2350-486: Was constructed from 1882 to 1888 under the direction of civil engineer Reuben Lindsay Walker . A $ 75 million underground extension was completed in 1993. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and recognized as a National Historic Landmark in 1986. The Texas State Capitol is 302.64 feet (92.24 m) tall, making it the sixth-tallest state capitol and one of several taller than
2400-456: Was followed by even taller structures: first the 307-foot (94 m) Dobie Center (designed in 1968), and then a series of ever larger downtown bank towers, culminating in the 395-foot (120 m) One American Center (designed in 1982). In early 1983, inspired by the Westgate and these other structures, State Senator Lloyd Doggett and State Representative Gerald Hill advanced a bill proposing
2450-419: Was marked by a weeklong celebration from May 14–19, 1888, that attracted nearly 20,000 visitors and included events such as military drill demonstrations, cattle roping, baseball games, German choral singing, and fireworks. Guests were able to purchase souvenirs such as pieces of red granite and copies of a song written by composer and pianist Leonora Rives-Diaz called the "State Capitol Grand Waltz". In 1931,
2500-607: Was rebuilt and updated between 1988 and 1990, after which the Capitol Visitors Center was moved there, freeing space in the Capitol. Previously, the building had housed the Texas Confederate Museum , which began in a ground floor room of the Capitol (1903–1920), before moving to the Land Office building. Additionally, the state sought to address the intensifying shortage of space in the old building, deciding that
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