Bascom Hall columns to be replaced

Some of the most visible symbols at the university — the columns at the front of Bascom Hall — are rotting and need to be replaced.

The State Building Commission on Wednesday, Dec. 20, approved a request from the university to replace the six wooden cylindrical columns and the two rectangular half-columns against the wall of the building. Cost is estimated at $207,000.

The deteriorating condition of the 22-foot-tall columns — erected in 1916 following a fire at Bascom Hall — was discovered this summer by university painters as they prepared the columns to be repainted.

Replacing the columns — which are 30 inches in diameter and about 94 inches in circumference — is a priority because they support the pitched roof that extends from the building over its portico. The deteriorating condition of the columns has not yet damaged the roof, but could if left unchecked, campus planners say.

“The columns are not just decorative,” says Steve Harman of UW–Madison Facilities Planning and Management. “That’s why we are moving forward as soon as possible.”

Harman says the bases of the two northern columns are completely rotted, and their capitals, or tops, are separating; the middle columns show increasing signs of deterioration in their bases and capitals; and the two southern columns are rotting around their bases and capitals.

Harman says that moisture seeped into the bases and capitals of the columns as caulk around them deteriorated over the years and created gaps in the laminated wood.

Because Bascom Hall is listed on the Historic Building Register, the replacement work must replicate the existing columns, constructed out of staved heart-redwood. The project will also repair a small portion of the trim and facia above the east entrance of the building’s south wing.

The work is expected to take place during the summer or fall of 2001.

In other business, the building commission on Wednesday accepted the feasibility study for the Camp Randall Stadium renovation project and approved a request for $736,000 to begin designing the project’s underground utility work.