Photo of the Day: State House, Providence, RI

When I visited Providence in October 2015, the imposing State House of Rhode Island was just a few blocks from where I stayed. Whether or not it is the most beautiful state house in the nation, as locals claim, this white marble building is unquestionably designed to inspire awe, as one might expect from a structure created by the great American architectural firm of the late 19^th century, McKim, Mead, and White.

Completed in 1901, the building—330 feet long, 180 feet wide and 233 feet high—dominates Smith Hill, and is visible from most of downtown and many approaching highways..

There is plenty that could be discussed, from a historical and architectural viewpoint, about the State House, including the “Independent Man” statue at its top; the statues of two local military heroes, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and General Nathanael Greene; and an object that I discussed previously, its "Gettysburg Gun."

But the immediate, astonishing feature of the State House—one apparent in the photograph here that I took at the time—was its dome, the fourth-largest self-supporting one in the world, behind only St. Peter’s Basilica, the Minneapolis State Capitol, and the Taj Mahal. It’s so big that a number of cupolas surround this main dome.