Hunter
01/21/22
The University of Iowa will restore the gold leaf on the Old Capitol dome this summer.
The Gazette reports that OPN Architects of Iowa City was hired to study the cause of gilding failure and develop recommendations for repair and restoration of the roof. The dome has been gilded since 1920, replacing the original copper.
The dome was destroyed in 2001 when contractors removing asbestos and paint accidentally set it on fire. A replacement dome was installed two years later, but the Capitol was closed to the public for five years.
A 2014 inspection showed that the gold leaf was deteriorating prematurely.
In a report made public Thursday, OPN recommended re-gilding the dome at a cost of $504,375. The other option was to apply a gold-colored sheet metal roof, but the cost was over $177,000 higher and would have taken an additional year to complete because of supply chain issues. The report also states that the life span of the metal roof would have been shorter than the gold leaf.
Gilding is done by a select few companies. The newspaper reports that most gold leaf comes from an Italian company that uses electric hammers to beat an alloy of mostly 23 ¾ karat gold into sheets so thin that a stack of 10,000 is no thicker than a dime.
The university’s timeline for the project begins with putting out the project for bid on February 8th. Removing the existing gold leaf and underlying lead would start in the spring, with the replacement gold leaf applied in the summer and completed in August.
