01-16-08 16:29 Texas Capitol Extension, E2, near west elevators

In one city, progress was valued above all; achievement and novelty, especially in the arts and crafts, set the population head and shoulders above its neighbors and predecessors. In the center of the city they have built a great monument, which was begun countless barbaric generations ago. Before even the original plan was realized, the children of the first inhabitants chose to expand it. Earth was moved, stone was quarried, and a greater circle was carved out in the city center. New boundaries were laid down, half again the size of the original.
The next generation in time grew wealthy, and chose to commemorate their new power by adding more wings and levels to the monument, subsuming an even wider circle of the city into their material, intellectual, and cultural progress. So followed every generation, adding more floors and chambers, adding more layers of gilding and ornament, reflecting the pinnacle of technological and artistic capabilities at that time, far ahead of anything imagined by those who came before. Faster than the old ideas could be carried to fruition, they were modernized, updated, and improved. For miles and miles around the monument was hailed as the paragon of human ability.
The workers prided themselves as being on the leading edge. As soon as a new expansion was announced, they would collect their belongings and move our from the center to the frontier of the monument, patching the unfinished work with whatever was quick and at hand, eager to progress from the old, conservative sections to the exciting new territories. Rooms were walled off, leaving no entrances. Walls were placed over window openings, windows over doors. Niches and hollows were plastered over to hide their incompleteness, and hallways vanished into formless darkness, their abortive destinations not even lit. Corridors were barricaded, precariously supported great ceilings blocked from view, and uneven, intricate floor patterns covered with quick, seamless concrete. Drains were plugged, stone was left rough, and working lights were forgotten. The builders knew nobody would see the inner chambers again.
They were old now, out of fashion. Streams of visitors ventured into the fantastical new construction sites, eager to be the first to experience the latest generation's genius. None ventured further, nobody was interested in the uninhabitable labyrinths abandoned for the sake of progress. So shoddily had they been planned out that there were no fixtures, no lights, and even rooms with no entrances.