SangamonLink: French immigrant deserves the title of Capitol's architect, researchers say

The question of who deserves credit for designing the Illinois Statehouse has a complicated answer.

* When commissioners awarded the first design contract, newspaper stories called it “the plan of J.C. Cochrane,” referring to Chicago architect John C. Cochrane.

* An early drawing of the building’s exterior carries the names of Cochrane and one of his partners, George O. Garnsey. Garnsey and Cochrane later fell out, with Garnsey claiming that Cochrane had bribed the commissioners to win the contract. (Springfield newspapers dismissed the allegations as unproven and unlikely.)

* When the Capitol was finally completed in the 1880s, a project that involved a major redesign of the building’s main entrance, the architect was William W. Boyington.

* But the man who researchers say most deserves the title of Illinois Statehouse architect was a French immigrant and utopian, Alfred Piquenard. Piquenard also seems to have been primarily responsible for designing the Iowa Capitol (it helped that he was able to use many of the same drawings).

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Piquenard was born in the Normandy region of France and studied engineering and design in Paris. He joined the Icarians, a utopian socialist movement founded by French politician Etienne Cabet.

Cabet decided to set up a demonstration Icarian community in the U.S., picking Texas as the location. Piquenard is thought to have been one of an advance guard of Icarian colonists who arrived in New Orleans in March 1848. The Texas colony fell through, however, so Piquenard and about 260 other Icarians moved to Nauvoo, Illinois.

When the Civil War began, Piquenard joined a Union infantry regiment as a private; by the end of the war, he had been promoted to captain and commander of “Piquenard’s Company of Pioneers,” a unit of construction engineers.

The partnership of Cochrane and Garnsey was selected over eight other firms to design the new Illinois Capitol in 1867. However, “Much of the ensuing design work was completed by partner George Garnsey and Alfred H. Piquenard, who joined the firm in February 1868,” according to SAH Archipedia, the website of the Society of Architectural Historians.

Pieces of Iowa’s Past, a guide to the Iowa Capitol, discussed the relationship between Cochrane and Piquenard in an article based on a 2009 paper by Wayne Temple, formerly with the Illinois State Archives:

“Cochran (sic) and Piquenard enjoyed a profitable partnership. Cochran obtained the contracts, and Piquenard designed the structures.

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“When the Iowa Commissioners advertised for a competition to submit plans to build a new Iowa Capitol, Cochran reused his plans for the Illinois Capitol for this Iowa competition. The Iowa Commissioners chose Cochran and Piquenard’s plan labeled ‘Palladian.’ The duo was awarded the contract for building Iowa’s new capitol in 1870.”

Piquenard moved his family to Springfield in 1870 to oversee construction of Illinois’ Statehouse while also working on plans for the Iowa Capitol. Somehow, he also found time to design the David Davis Mansion in Bloomington.

Piquenard, however, did not live to see either Capitol completed. He died in 1876 of liver disease brought on by malaria, which he contracted during the Civil War. In his obituary, the Illinois State Register commented:

“As an architect and practical builder, Mr. Piquenard had no superior in this country; and it will be difficult for the new State House commissioners to fill his place.”

Piquenard is buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery.

Excerpted from SangamonLink.org, online encyclopedia of the Sangamon County Historical Society.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Frenchman deserves the title of IL Capitol's architect, researchers say