Did you know...

• The same architectural firm that designed the college’s newest building, Howe Hall, designed its oldest building. The Iowa legislature stipulated that the design of Engineering Hall would be determined by an architectural competition. The competition drew 10 responses, including one from the man who designed President Lincoln’s tomb. The winning design came from Proudfoot and Bird, a Des Moines firm known today as Brooks, Borg, and Skiles.
  
  
• Marston, with his customary concern with economy, proposed a red brick exterior for the building. The legislature, however, decided to face the building with Indiana limestone to make it look more like the buildings on eastern college campuses. Limestone added another $4,000 to the project, bringing the total cost of construction to $160,000.
  
  
• Original planning sketches from the university archives show the Muses depicted as women dressed in the fashions of the early 1900s, holding garlands of flowers entwined with ribbons. An unknown stonecutter, however, chose to sculpt traditional Greek statues. Each of the eight-foot-tall Muses represents an engineering field taught in 1900—mining, civil, mechanical, and electrical—and each holds artifacts of the profession she represents.
  
  
• The niches on either side of the exterior east entrance were created with the purpose of placing statues of individuals who had made the greatest contributions to engineering. They remain vacant.
  
  
• The fourth floor was built without a central corridor. There were small offices on the north and south ends; the remaining space was divided into two large rooms that stretched the width of the building. The open area was needed to accommodate the large drafting tables used by students at the turn of the century. There were also five skylights on the fourth floor; all have been covered. A central corridor was added in the ’70s by removing interior walls. The large drafting rooms were converted into smaller classrooms and offices.