Restoration of Bascom Hall, which began August 2004, is set to conclude this week. Construction has focused on renovating the building's wooden columns and portico.
Steve Harman, campus civil engineer, said the columns themselves and their decorative capitals needed little refurbishment, but the bases required more work.
\The column bases, though, were completely shot-every one of them,"" he said. ""They replaced the wooden ones with a combination of stone and wood and the column bases are completely new and restored.""
Construction also included extensive repair of the portico and its roof.
""Probably the most expensive was the stone removal and replacement part of it,"" Harman said. ""[The portico] was replaced with a better type of stone which I think looks almost identical to the existing Madison sandstone, which was the original stone put on the entire Bascom Hall.""
While the stones and wooden columns are original elements of Bascom Hall, Harman said workers were surprised to find past renovations of the building.
""We did discover the bases had been refurbished once before,"" he said. ""Exactly what we had done, they had replaced with different wooden [bases]. They had been replaced, as far as we can figure, in the World War II era.""
Donna Ford, building manager for Bascom Hall, said the restorations were often disruptive to students and office workers.
""The only bad part I think for occupants of the building is when they were jackhammering out the steps,"" she said. ""That was a little distracting to some folks in the front of the building. ... It's going to be beautiful, though. We're looking forward to that day-soon, we're hoping.""
UW-Madison senior Charlie Kinzie said navigating around the construction had been difficult at times.
""It's kind of difficult when it's crowded and you have to walk around the front of Bascom to get to Social Sciences or Van Vleck,"" he said. ""But I think it'll look nice when it's done and everything's out of the way and cleaned up.""
Despite minimal inconveniences, Harman said he felt the university would be satisfied with the results.
""Chancellor Wiley is real pleased with it,"" Harman said. ""I talk to him quite a bit about it because he's out there looking at it a lot of times. ... I think as it weathers, over time you won't be able to tell the difference at all between the new stone and the old stone.""
