There's 2 Sides To Every Story — Including The Arizona Capitol

By Mark Brodie, Steve Goldstein
Published: Friday, October 20, 2017 - 5:16pm
Updated: Friday, October 20, 2017 - 5:17pm
(Screenshot of video from Marshall Shore)
Marshall Shore created a video called "Arizona State Capitol, Ugly?"

There are at least two sides to every story. Well, we certainly have two sides to this story about our state Capitol building.

There's the original Capitol building, the one with the shiny copper dome and the granite walls and Roman columns, and the brutalist behemoth known as the Executive Tower that was built in the '70s.

An article back in September ranked Arizona’s Capitol building as “one of the flat-out ugliest state Capitols in the country.”

That didn’t sit too well with Marshall Shore, Arizona’s self-proclaimed “hip historian.” So he made a video response.

Arizona State Capitol, Ugly? from RetroSpectacular on Vimeo.

There seems to be some confusion about which side should be considered the state Capitol’s face.

The funny thing though is we might not even be having this conversation if the state had constructed a completely new Capitol like lawmakers were considering in the '50s. The one and only Frank Lloyd Wright sketched a proposal that looks a little like a greenhouse with spires. But instead they added the House and Senate buildings on the sides.

And the Executive Tower in the back, where, if you stand at the right angle, the copper dome almost conceals it.

There are two sides to every story. We did a little digging and found the Arizona state Capitol was included in a different list of 13 stunning Capitol buildings this year.

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