Did you know that Courthouse 1 has two domes? Like many domes on buildings, there is an interior dome and an exterior dome. Usually, there can be a sizeable amount of space between the two. The following photo is taken from the blueprints for the 1996 dome restoration project. 

Follow the ladders in the center of the drawing up to the thin curved line. (The ladders are not visible because they are in the space between the two domes.) The thin line represents what we see from inside. You'll note the reference to the stained glass, which is what you see at the very top of the inside dome. Above that thin line is the part of the dome you can't see from inside. 

During the tour of the project, we learned that there is a gap between the walls leading up to the dome and the dome itself.  It runs around the entire base of the dome. 

Although it doesn't show in the photograph, with the naked eye we could make out one of the iron ladders inside. There are also connecting rods visible, along with a lot of dust and other, well, schmutz. 

We also discovered that the space used to be lighted. 

This lighting would never pass a code inspection today. It appears to be old "knob and tube" lighting, which was one of the very first types of indoor electrical wiring used. The bulbs seem to be old, standard incandescent bulbs like we used to buy at hardware stores. 

In the blueprint drawing, it labels this lighting feature as "cove lighting." In the following picture taken from one level below the top of the scaffolding, the cove lighting is a thin dark line roughly one-third up from the bottom of the image. 

The photo also gives you a first glimpse of the interior of the dome itself.

Looking up from the floor below, you would never realize the amount of detail in the plasterwork. (Yes, it's all hard plaster.)

What appears to be empty red paint covers trompe l'oeil (French for "trick the eye") work. It looks three-dimensional but is actually flat. In this photo and the following photo, we see what the Conrad Schmitt crew has recreated. The red paint was partially removed, but the even layers of paint underneath the red paint gave an indication of what was once there. In the photo below, the artists show what some of the detail work could look like.

There's more to come.