The Illinois State Capitol, located in Springfield, Illinois, houses the legislative and executive branches of the government of the U.S. state of Illinois. The current building is the sixth to serve as the capitol building since Illinois was admitted to the United States in 1818. Built in the architectural styles of the French Renaissance and Italianate, it was designed by Cochrane and Garnsey, an architecture and design firm based in Chicago. Ground was broken for the new capitol on March 11, 1868, and the building was completed twenty years later for a total cost of $4.5 million. The building contains the chambers for the Illinois General Assembly, which is made up of the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate. An office for the Governor of Illinois, additional offices, and committee rooms are also in the building. The capitol's footprint is cross-shaped, with four equal wings. Its tall central dome and tower roofs are covered in zinc to provide a silvery facade which does not weather. Architecture scholar Jean A. Follett describes it as a building that "is monumental in scale and rich in detail." The interior of the dome features a plaster frieze painted to resemble bronze, which illustrates scenes from Illinois history, and stained glass windows, including a stained glass replica of the state seal in the oculus of the dome. Description With a total height of , the Illinois capitol is the tallest non-skyscraper capitol, even exceeding the height of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. In contrast, the shortest skyscraper capitol stands a mere tall. The only state capitols taller than it are the non-classical designs of Louisiana and Nebraska, whose governments opted for more modern structures. The dome itself is wide, and is supported by solid bedrock, below the surface. It is the highest (though not the tallest) building in Sangamon County. The Wyndham Springfield City Centre is taller than the capitol, however it is on lower ground, making the capitol building higher. A city statute does not allow buildings higher than the capitol. Each wing of the building is aligned to the 4 major compass directions; from the north end to the south end the building measures and from the east end to the west end . The capitol occupies a nine acre plot of land which forms the capitol grounds. William Douglas Richardson served as one of the principal contractors for the