State House Monuments Tour
Since Columbia’s 1786 founding, the grounds of the South Carolina State House have grown from a 4-acre site bounded by Richardson (Main), Gervais, Assembly, and Senate streets into a 22-acre complex featuring 7 buildings and more than 30 monuments. South Carolinians have constructed, altered, and reconsidered this space for more than 230 years—and continue to do so today. Over the last year, architectural historian Lydia Mattice Brandt, Ph.D. undertook a comprehensive survey of this built landscape. Her research serves as the basis for this new web-based tour, available below. If you would like to do your own research on the monuments (and to find out more from the sources used to create this website), visit our bibliography page.
These tours are made possible by
Historically Complex: The Podcast
What do the monuments represent? How can we know? Historically Complex, a new podcast, peels back the layers on the history represented at the South Carolina State House.