Monday, August 24, 2009

Featured Collection: American Capitols

Ever wondered what every single American state capitol building looked like? I have. I once got a cool book from the library that was a photographic tour of all fifty state capitol buildings from Delaware to Hawaii.

You can also view all fifty buildings in virtual 3D here on Google's online 3D Warehouse in the collection I call American Capitols.

There is surprising variety to these buildings. Many are what is called "American Renaissance" style-- the typical capitol you think of, a bunch of Roman columns with a great dome in the center. But some are Art Deco office towers, others are round, or modest (check out Alaska's), and some are just plain ugly (sorry, Florida).

Most of these models were made by Google, but one (Minnesota) was made by a 3D modeling group called Blue Marble Project. I've been working on my own Minnesota model, but ran into some technical difficulties (bugs). Hopefully some day I can share that one. It's pretty cool.