Salt Lake City City County Building

The Salt Lake City-County Building was designed by Proudfoot,Bird & Monheim and constructed between 1891 and 1894. This was the only structure designed by the firm since Monheim died shortly after construction began. The building was riddled with controversy from the start. Backed by the non-Mormon city council, many believed that it's Richardsonian Romanesque design was intended to rival the Mormon temple. The site was moved after the foundation had been laid and the whole project came in almost three times it's original budget.

The structure is built from local sandstone and was only the second building in the country to employ base isolators to protect it from seismic movement. The City-County Building is on the National Register of Historic Places.



	The stonework on this structure is amazing even today. The cornerstone.

	A statue of Columbia tops the tower
	A base isolator system consists of two parts; the shock absorbing base that the building now sits on and a method to isolate the structure from the surrounding earth. These steel plates cover gaps between the building and the ground. Even the wall adjacent to the entry stair has had a gap cut in it. This allows the structure to move independently of the ground in the event of an earthquake.