Monument Plaza, Hoover Dam, Boulder City, NV (3)
**Hoover Dam** - National Register of Historic Places Ref # 81000382, date listed 4/8/1981
E of Las Vegas on U.S. 93
Boulder City, NV (Clark County)
A National Historic Landmark (www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalhistoriclandmarks/list-of-nh...
Much of the sculpture is the work of Norwegian-born, naturalized American Oskar J.W. Hansen. Hansen's principal work at Hoover Dam is the monument of dedication on the Nevada side of the dam. Here, rising from a black, polished base, is a 142-foot flagpole flanked by two winged figures, which Hansen calls the Winged Figures of the Republic. They express "the immutable calm of intellectual resolution, and the enormous power of trained physical strength, equally enthroned in placid triumph of scientific accomplishment."
The winged figures are 30 feet high. Their shells are 5/8-inch thick, and contain more than 4 tons of statuary bronze. The figures were formed from sand molds weighing 492 tons. The bronze that forms the shells was heated to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, and poured into the molds in one continuous, molten stream.
The figures rest on a base of black diorite, an igneous rock. In order to place the blocks without marring their highly polished finish, they were centered on blocks of ice, and guided precisely into place as the ice melted. After the blocks were in place, the flagpole was dropped through a hole in the center block into a predrilled hole in the mountain.
Surrounding the base is a terrazzo floor, inlaid with a star chart, or celestial map. The chart preserves for future generations the date on which President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated Hoover Dam, September 30, 1935. (1)
References (1) Bureau of Reclamation www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/history/essays/artwork.html
Monument Plaza, Hoover Dam, Boulder City, NV (3)
**Hoover Dam** - National Register of Historic Places Ref # 81000382, date listed 4/8/1981
E of Las Vegas on U.S. 93
Boulder City, NV (Clark County)
A National Historic Landmark (www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalhistoriclandmarks/list-of-nh...
Much of the sculpture is the work of Norwegian-born, naturalized American Oskar J.W. Hansen. Hansen's principal work at Hoover Dam is the monument of dedication on the Nevada side of the dam. Here, rising from a black, polished base, is a 142-foot flagpole flanked by two winged figures, which Hansen calls the Winged Figures of the Republic. They express "the immutable calm of intellectual resolution, and the enormous power of trained physical strength, equally enthroned in placid triumph of scientific accomplishment."
The winged figures are 30 feet high. Their shells are 5/8-inch thick, and contain more than 4 tons of statuary bronze. The figures were formed from sand molds weighing 492 tons. The bronze that forms the shells was heated to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, and poured into the molds in one continuous, molten stream.
The figures rest on a base of black diorite, an igneous rock. In order to place the blocks without marring their highly polished finish, they were centered on blocks of ice, and guided precisely into place as the ice melted. After the blocks were in place, the flagpole was dropped through a hole in the center block into a predrilled hole in the mountain.
Surrounding the base is a terrazzo floor, inlaid with a star chart, or celestial map. The chart preserves for future generations the date on which President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated Hoover Dam, September 30, 1935. (1)
References (1) Bureau of Reclamation www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/history/essays/artwork.html