I recently photographed the State General Administration Building in Olympia, on the Capital Campus, to the standards of the Historic American Building Survey. To meet those standards, I used a 4×5 view camera with sheet film. This is part of the process to document the building before it is demolished.
The building was designed by A. Gordon Lumm AIA of Tacoma in the International Style, and finished in 1956. I thought the exterior facade was interesting and well organized. As I photographed the building I realized the facades did not have obvious center points, which make the design more dynamic. Passersby told me that they had a lower opinion of the interior organization of the building, which they found confusing. Perhaps that was because the bureaucracy residing there was confusing. One state worker remembered going there when he was 4 years old with his mom, and getting lost. Then a few years ago he went there to retrieve a box that was archived there, and he got lost again.
Unfortunately, I did not get to photograph the lobby before the large tile mural by Jean C. Beall was cut out and moved down the street to the new Helen Sommers Building. But it’s great to know that the mural will continue to be on display.
