Talk:Minnesota State Capitol/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Reviewer: Asilvering (talk · contribs) 00:14, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

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Lead
"The building is set in a landscaped campus. Various monuments are to its sides and front. Behind, a bridge spans University Avenue, and in front others were later added over the sunken roadway of Interstate 94, thus preserving the sight lines. Set near the crest of a hill, from the Capitol steps a panoramic view of downtown Saint Paul is presented." -- I don't think any of these sentences are clear or helpful enough for a lead. This is the main descriptive part of the lead, but I don't come away from it knowing what the building looks like - just that it's on a hill and there are bridges and monuments nearby. Can you say something about the style? Explain anything more about the landscaping? I'm not sure the bit about the bridges is lead-level relevant, but at any rate I don't think it's helpful to someone who doesn't already know what Saint Paul looks like. "Set near the crest of a hill..." is a misplaced modifier.

"East to west, the Capitol is more than 430 ft (130 m) long. From ground level to the top of the dome's lantern measures 220 ft (67 m). Inside, the building has more than 300,000 square feet (28,000 m2) of floor space, or about 5,000,000 cubic feet (140,000 m3) of space.[2]" -- I don't think this is lead-worthy myself but I wouldn't demand its removal. But it is strange to learn this before we learn, for example, that "The current state capitol building is actually the third building to serve this purpose." Can you pull some more relevant information like this up into the lead? I would at the very least expect the year it was built, the name of the architect, and a brief mention of the renovation project, since these come up in the main body of the article extensively. -- done.

History
First Minnesota State Capitol: the burning is mentioned twice in a short paragraph; this paragraph should be edited to read better. It might be nice to have a brief line in here about the architecture/architect itself, too, like in 2nd Capitol paragraph, if possible. -- done.

Second Minnesota State Capitol: some grammar errors in here that should be cleaned up. But also a clarity check - is the "Shortly after it was opened..." sentence supposed to explain why the officials started planning a new capitol building? If so I think this should be expressed more clearly; if not, is there something missing here...? I'm also left wondering why the building was left standing after the third capitol was built, and what it was used for in the interim. -- done. But I have left some specific cleanup tags in here.

Third Minnesota State Capitol: like the other two sections here, this needs a bit of a prose cleanup. I'm also left wondering why the current location was chosen, since the old building was not destroyed and it had to be moved. -- done.

Images: it would be helpful to have dates in these captions. -- done.

Construction
The only thing here that's really relevant is the date. Instead, a short summary of the first three sections of the separate Minnesota State Capitol construction article would be helpful. Or this section could even be omitted, and the separate construction article linked in the History section, if the Third Minnesota State Capital section were expanded a bit. The questions that I would expect to be answered here are things like "who built it?" "when?" "how was that chosen?" "did anything unusual happen during the construction?" "did the construction turn out as intended?" -- done.

Architecture
The building is more than just the dome and the stone, right? What about everything else. The overall shape of the building, the style of it...? This is where I would put the lead sentence talking about square footage, by the way.

Is there any chance you could add a floor plan or architectural line drawing to this section?

There has to be something better than a tourist brochure that can be cited for the bottom half of this section, surely...?
 * Sadly there isn't anything published out to the public that I know of other than the brochure. At least the brochure is by the Minnesota Historical Society. Several sources including a couple of very good books cited in this article put out the misinformation that what was thought to be Catlinite. Geeky I know, but it can be important info for historians, geologists and for Native people for whom Catlinite is sacred and used for making prayer and ceremonial pipes. I have asked  the MNHS site manager for the Capitol, Brian Pease to see if there is a report that is accessible to the public that can be sited. Myotus (talk) 04:11, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Done. Brian Pease pointed to Julie Gauthier's, Minnesota State Capitol: Official Guide and History (1912 edition) p. 16. She notes the stone being a "rose-red Pipestone quartzyte". Pease states that description in later editions of the book, unfortunately, gets morphed into only "pipestone" and "quartzite" is left off. Thus the evolution of how it was incorrectly identified as pipestone for many decades to follow. Myotus (talk) 18:32, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

"Many states subsequently constructed their own "Beaux-Arts" Capitols, showing that the Minnesota State Capitol was held in high regard as a model from which to learn." -- this is someone's opinion, held by an obviously self-interested source. (Personally, I would expect the Chicago Ex to have the bigger effect - but I am not an expert here.) The simplest way to deal with this is just to remove the sentence, assuming you're not too attached to it?

Artwork
This doesn't adequately summarize the linked article.

Columbus quadriga: any reason not to put the image in here directly rather than link it?
 * I added it in but I am not too keen on it. It seems to me it puts too much emphasis on the quadriga in the section and not enough on the 'art' at the Capitol. However, what are your thoughts? The image is already on the page Progress of the State. Myotus (talk) 05:02, 12 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Hm, I'm with you. Better without the inline image. -- asilvering (talk) 01:15, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Removed Myotus (talk) 05:09, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Interior
This section would benefit from a quick prose edit.

"The star's glass floor provides natural light to a State Capitol hearing room below." -- I can't copy edit this sentence myself because I don't know if this is the only State Capitol hearing room (in which case, change "a" to "the"), or if there are many such rooms (in which case, leave it).
 * There are a few hearing rooms/conference rooms in the Capitol. It is an interesting room and one of my more favorite less known ones. It originally it was known as the 'Rotunda Crypt' sometimes now unofficially called the 'Rotunda Crypt hearing room.' It was converted to a hearing room in ??? and was renovated 1985. Myotus (talk) 04:45, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

"Wikimedia Commons has media related to State symbols at the Minnesota State Capitol." -- This should be part of the wikimedia template at the bottom of the page. -- On second thought, there are several of these in following sections; if you can get the template at the bottom of the article to look ok with all of them, by all means add all of them there. If that starts to get awkward, I think the main link should be enough, since these are all (or should be?) subcategories of that one.
 * Let me work on this one... Myotus (talk) 04:45, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and removed all of them except the one going to the Minnesota State Capitol on Wikimedia Commons. It appears to be the standard on Wikipedia. Myotus (talk) 05:12, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

"The quality and volume of American Civil War art and historic artifacts in the capitol building gives the semblance of the Capitol being a memorial to Civil War veterans. However, evidence suggests that it was less deliberate and more of an organic process." -- I think you can delete this sentence and put the citation on the end of the next paragraph instead, assuming that citation applies to that second paragraph as well?
 * I think it is important enough to mention it. However, I think you are right, it shouldn't be the lead. I have rewritten it and put it at the end. Myotus (talk) 04:45, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Exterior
There is nothing in this section except the subheading "Capitol Mall". Is there an element to the exterior that is not the Mall? If so, it should appear here. If not, just delete this subheading. (Leave the "main article" link.)

This section doesn't adequately summarize the linked article. I don't know anything about how this area is used, and very little about what it looks like, from reading this section.

Renovation
"When the building reopened, two of these paintings, Father Hennepin Discovering the Falls of St. Anthony, and the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux were relocated while others remained in place." -- How do you feel about putting both of these linked images in the article directly, along with the two images that are already here, as a small gallery? Right now it looks like they're links to their own wikipedia pages but it's just to the files on wp-commons. I think four images is too many for this much text if they're all placed individually, but a gallery might work. It might look a bit janky so close to the final gallery, though, so I'm happy with whatever you think looks best.


 * They were two of four paintings that were removed. Similar to the quadriga, I think adding the photos would give too much weight to the section on renovation. My feeling is linking to them is adequate. They are discussed in the Minnesota State Capitol artwork article and I just added a gallery with the the removed artwork there. Myotus (talk)
 * Fair enough, striking this section. -- asilvering (talk) 01:20, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

"The grand opening celebration featured a ribbon cutting ceremony with state and local leaders, panel conversations with notable Minnesotans (including former U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale and Minnesota Lynx Head Coach Cheryl Reeve), a beer tasting event with more than 25 Minnesota craft brewers, and musical performances from Minnesota bands Poliça and Cloud Cult." -- I'm not sure this is so important that it needs to be mentioned here at all. Maybe just delete it? -- Actually, none of the references in this paragraph work or support the text, so I just removed this paragraph myself. If you think it's very important, you can of course put it back in, but you should find a source that works for the info if so.
 * I don't know what possessed me to put it in the article in the first place. Thanks for removing it! Myotus (talk) 05:25, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't know if it was you! I think it was probably added a while ago. -- asilvering (talk) 01:20, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

"Wikimedia Commons has media related to the Minnesota State Capitol renovation." -- This should be part of the wikimedia template at the bottom of the page.
 * Again, will work on this. Myotus (talk) 05:25, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Galleries
Is there a reason why this isn't just "gallery"?