Fittingly, members served under an unfinished Capitol dome – construction on the cast-iron edifice began in 1855 and would not be completed until 1863 – at once a symbol of republican government striving to rise up just as fierce fighting mere miles south on the battlefields of Virginia, and elsewhere, sought to tear it down.
So up rose grand limestone, brick and cast-iron edifices.
Since 1860, this weighty classical edifice of iron and gray marble has squatted behind the elegant City Hall like an unwanted stepchild.
A short journey on RER Line D and it's back on Eurostar under the great iron roof beyond the Neoclassical edifice of Gare du Nord, built in 1861-4.
Arthington, which was settled by migrants from Georgia and the Carolinas from 1869 onward with the assistance of the English philanthropist Robert Arthington, was rich in these fascinating edifices, constructed of wood, corrugated iron and brick.
In front you'll find the Chambers, an imposing edifice with arched windows and cast-iron columns; it feels like a castle, with a sweeping staircase that leads up to 38 rooms with high ceilings and sumptuous architectural details.
It winds past chipped brick edifices, weathered barns and cornfields until it ends, finally, at an iron gate.
Built by the engineer Gustave Eiffel as the centerpiece of the 1889 Exposition Universelle, the vaulting iron structure was intended, Jonnes writes, as "a potent symbol of French modern industrial might, a towering edifice that would exalt science and technology, assert France's superiority over its rivals (especially America) and entice millions to visit Paris".
In his 1851 memoir Golden Dreams and Waking Realities, English seaman William Shaw described "Francisco" as a rude collection of tents, wood-framed houses and "stupendous taverns, gambling-houses and other extensive edifices... From sixty to eighty thousand dollars was the rent of some taverns houses of timber, iron, zinc or canvass".
Look up while you're in Montpellier, and the city is all tawny limestone edifices and wrought-iron balconies, a beautiful and slightly mysterious medieval town.
