North Dakota Bridles at Minnesota Lawmaker's Capitol Insult

BISMARCK, N.D. — North Dakota's governor has bitten back at a Minnesota lawmaker who compared his state's Depression-era Capitol building to an insurance office, calling the critic ignorant of classic architecture.

The Capitol in Bismarck was built during the 1930s with a plain concrete and stone exterior, ostensibly to keep costs down.

In a Thursday debate on funding for renovations to the Minnesota state Capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota Republican House majority leader Matt Dean said North Dakota's Capitol is "embarrassing" and resembles a State Farm Insurance building.

North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple isn't impressed.

Dalrymple describes the Capitol in Bismarck as a classic example of Chicago skyscraper design and says people who don't appreciate it don't know much about architecture.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. Photo by Justin Brockie/flickr CC.