and 4.35 million bricks were necessary to complete it, and once finished it stood 187 feet tall. The building also required 300 tons of cut limestone. The halls were wide and it was considered hygienic, since they had installed a ventilating system unequalled in any public building in America at the time. The Golden Dome was the last thing to be finished, with the iron framework, the panels and the columns supporting the dome, being added during the summer of 1882 and the dome itself was finished in September. The statue of Mary atop the dome weighs 4,000 pounds and stands 19 feet tall. It was a gift from the sisters, students, and alumnae of adjacent Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame's sister school. It replicates the pose of the statue of Mary on the Column of the Immaculate Conception in Piazza di Spagna in Rome, erected under Pius IX. It was designed by Chicago artist Giovanni Meli. The statue arrived on campus in July 1880 to replace the one that was destroyed in the fire. The cast-iron statue sat on the rebuilt front porch of the new Main Building for two years while the new dome was completed. The $1 million rebuilding project had left the university in debt. University founder Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C., wanted to gild the dome in real gold, but the Holy Cross community's Council of Administration for Notre Dame deemed it too great an extravagance. The standoff lasted into 1886, when Father Sorin used his position as superior general of the community to name himself to the committee and asked to be its chairman. He then refused to come to the meetings so that the other members could not legally conduct its business, even moving to temporary quarters at Saint Mary's and refusing to return. When University business halted, the committee relented and Father Sorin got his Golden Dome and statue. The first project cost $2,000, while the 10th gilding of the dome in 2005 cost $300,000. By the mid-1880s, two lateral wings were added to each building to serve as dormitories, Carroll Hall on the west and Brownson Hall to the east, bringing the length of the building from 224 feet to 320. Brownson and Carroll Halls were closed by 1945 and the space was converted into offices. Architecture The building's style has been described as follows:Edbrooke called the finished product ‘modern Gothic’; a