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A delicate confection of concave plaster and water-based paint is being applied layer by layer to Utah's Capitol Rotunda dome.

On the temporary plywood platform playfully labeled the "dance floor," a trio of painters are painstakingly reconstructing an ornate flock of seagulls as part of the massive refurbishing of Utah's 92-year-old state Capitol.

Ten stories below, cement trucks grind away, flaming construction heaters flare and construction workers tromp through chalky dust.

Two years into the four-year process of stripping the granite Capitol down to its bones and rebuilding it, the incongruity of massive construction and precision painting happening all at once makes a strange kind of sense. Each job is scheduled almost to the hour, allowing each piece to fit so it won't conflict with another.

"It tends to be a little odd at times," says Sherry Thomas, project manager from New York City-based Evergreen Painting Studios.

With 250 construction workers, electricians, plumbers and painters scurrying around, the Capitol is busier this winter than it's been since it was closed for a $200 million reconstruction project in the summer of 2004. And the frenzy will only increase as the large construction jobs of ripping out walls and molding concrete fade away and the finish work of installing drywall and painting plaster progresses.

"We're actually starting to put it back together," says Dave Marshall, superintendent of general contractor Jacobsen-Hunt

The building is divided into a sandwich of sorts, with carpenters installing duct work and electrical wires on the lower floors and painters applying decorative paint at the top of the dome. In between, crews are finishing the process of shoring up the building to withstand an earthquake - the reason for the reconstruction. Nearly three-fourths of the job of installing base isolators - giant "springs" that allow the building to move in an earthquake - under the building is complete.

Crews have saved the hardest task for last - lifting the heavy Rotunda.

Last week, a 10-hour parade of trucks dumped nearly 500 yards of concrete around the bottom of the first of four piers that hold up the dome. The concrete is wrapped in cables and topped off with a "pancake" jack. When the concrete cures in a month, the jack will be progressively raised.

When all four piers are complete, the cables will be pulled taut to raise the building - sort of like a suspension bridge - in order to place the isolators beneath the piers. The whole process will be featured on the Discovery Channel program "The Daily Planet."

"It's a marriage between building engineering and bridge engineering," says Project Engineer Jerod Johnson.

Installing the isolators will wrap up late this summer.

Crews are shaping massive concrete sheets - "sheer walls" that will hold up the stone walls during a temblor - attaching them to the exterior granite.

An asbestos-abatement crew of Utah prisoners soon will remove sticky black adhesive around hundreds of windows so new custom windows can be installed.

Meantime, the detailed work of restoring the building's Victorian trappings will go on.

Prison inmates have built models of the mahogany-toned furniture that will fill the Capitol when it reopens early in 2008. Muted brown, gold and green fabric and carpet swatches have been chosen.

Crews are using machines that shoot dry ice pellets to remove the tarnished gilt on scrolled ironwork that lined the House and Senate galleries.

Evergreen painters have cleaned and stripped layers of paint around the Rotunda to find the beigy-pink base coat. Along the way, they discovered the plaster was painted in faux blocks to look like stone. Those "blocks" will be repainted.

In the dome itself, the plaster has been washed and repaired. Each seagull is covered in a rubbery red masking compound. That eventually will be rubbed away and the shape of each bird will be repainted in exactly the same location. Even the graffiti of the original painters will be preserved - including Walter Gissiman's 1934 signature.

"The detail is there. It's just faded," says Thomas. "We're just kind of pumping up the original. We're not straying."

That sentiment drives the entire reconstruction says Capitol Architect David Hart. Each task is done in keeping with architect Richard Kletting's plans. In fact, the blue and white paint going up now could be washed away in 100 years if technology changes to allow restoration closer to Golden Age craftsmanship.

"What we're trying to do, as much as possible, is provide some reversability," Hart says. Just in case the next generation decides to tackle the job of rebuilding the seat of government.

Concrete-anchored piers at the Capitol will be used to raise the Rotunda late this summer.

Chris Detrick/The Salt Lake Tribune