Bertram Goodhue: Architect of the Plains

Before Nebraska, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue (1869–1924) was already the kind of architect who made other architects nervous.

He designed **El Fureidis** in Montecito — Mediterranean drama in California. He shaped the **Los Angeles Public Library** — Spanish Colonial Revival meeting Art Deco before most people had a name for it. He didn't pick a lane. He built worlds.

Then Nebraska asked for a capitol. And Goodhue said: *what if we don't do a dome?*

The man behind the tower

Goodhue treated architecture like storytelling. Romanesque weight where it needed gravity. Gothic verticality where it needed reach. Art Deco geometry where it needed to feel like the future — because in 1920, Nebraska *was* betting on the future.

He won the competition. He set the vision. He **died in 1924**, four years before the tower was finished.

That's the part that gets me. He never stood under the completed Sower. Never heard Lincoln argue about the nickname. But walk the building today and you're still inside his intent — because the team he assembled (mosaic artists, sculptors, philosophers) understood the assignment.

What we know for sure

• Goodhue's Capitol design was his **magnum opus** — widely considered among the most significant American buildings of the 20th century.
• He collaborated with sculptor **Lee Lawrie** and mosaic artist **Hildreth Meière** — names you'll keep seeing on this series.
• Philosopher **Hartley Burr Alexander** helped shape the symbolism program — inscriptions aren't random; they're a curriculum carved in stone.

Dad-joke energy, dead serious craft

Picture other architects in 1920 sketching bigger domes on napkins. Goodhue was probably muttering, "Domes are so last century." Corny? Sure. Also basically true.

Nebraska didn't hire him to fit in. We hired him to **stand out**. And when you stand 400 feet tall on flat land, people notice.

Your homework

Next time you're at the Capitol, pick one facade detail and ask: *would a dome-builder have put this here?* Goodhue's answer is always no — and that's the whole personality of the building.