Henry Hobson Richardson

Submitted by:Tanya Pahwa2K6/Arch/628

Henry Hobson Richardson Henry Hobson Richardson (September

29, 1838–April 27, 1886) was a prominent American architect of the 19th century whose work left a significant impact on cities like Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh, & Albany.

Studied at Harvard and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris (1859-62) .While in Europe he worked under Henri Labrouste and Jakob Ignaz Hittorf.

Trinity Church, Boston defined his unique style which became known as "Richardsonian Romanesque" because of the parallels with Romanesque principles. He was very influential in his short life; followers include Charles Follen McKim, Stanford White, Louis Sullivan, and John Wellborn Root. (WJC)

Biography Richardson was born at Priestly Plantation in St. James Parish,

Louisiana and spent part of his childhood in New Orleans, where his family resided on Julia Row in a red brick house designed by the architect Alexander T. Wood. He was the great-grandson of inventor and philosopher Joseph Priestley.

Richardson went on to study at Harvard College. Initially he was interested in civil engineering, but eventually shifted to architecture which led him to go to Paris in 1860 to attend the famed École des Beaux Arts.

He didn't finish his training there, as family backing failed during the U.S. Civil War. Nonetheless, he was only the second US citizen to attend the Ecole— Richard Morris Hunt was the first. The school was to play an increasingly important role in training Americans in the following decades.

Richardson returned to the U.S. in 1865. The style that Richardson favored, however, was not the more classical style of the École, but a more medieval-inspired style, influenced by William Morris, John Ruskin and others. Richardson developed a unique idiom, however, adapting in particular the Romanesque of southern France.

The 1872 Trinity Church in Boston solidified Richardson's national reputation and provided major commissions for the rest of his life.

It was also a collaboration with the construction and engineering firm of the Norcross Brothers, with whom the architect worked on some 30 projects.

Evidence of Richardson's contemporary recognition is that, of ten buildings named by American architects as the best in 1885, fully half were his: Trinity Church, Boston, Albany City Hall, Sever Hall at Harvard University, the New York State Capitol in Albany (as a collaboration), and Town Hall in North Easton, Massachusetts.

Career

Richardsonian Romanesque (1870-1895) Eager to develop a style of architecture that would reflect what he

saw as the musculature of the fast-growing United States, the late-19-century architect developed what would be called the Richardsonian Romanesque style. Though the elevations were not very innovative, it had free-flowing plans with interpenetrating spaces that suited the informal lifestyle of the Americans.

It is a revival style based on French and Spanish Romanesque precedents of the 11th century.

The style was inspired by medieval style. The Richardsonian Romanesque eclipsed both the second Empire

Baroque and the High Victorian Gothic styles; the style had a powerful effect on Chicago architects such as Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, and influenced architects as far away as Scandinavia.

Richardson believed that what was no longer necessary for function could be made to serve a new purpose of form, by creating a new visual language of individual separation and privacy. For example, the heavy, rough-cut facing stones of Romanesque architecture were no longer necessary for engineering reasons. Architects and builders had discovered more efficient ways for walls to distribute and bear a building's weight.

Richardson's style is characterized by:

- Massive stone walls: boldly blank stretches of walling contrasting with bands of windows, and cylindrical towers with conical caps embedded in the walling,- Dramatic semicircular arches supported on clusters of

short squat columns, and round arches over clusters of windows on

massive walls.- A new dynamism of interior space. - Continuity and unity as keynotes,- Highly personal synthesis of

the Beaux-Arts predilection for clear and legible plans,

- Heavy picturesque massing roofline profiles that was

favored by the pro-medievalists,- New dynamism of interior

space,- Recessed entrances- Polychromy, and- Mastery of richly varied rustication.

Dispersion

The Lee County, Texas Courthouse, 1899: cautious Romanesque features applied to a

conservative design

Richardsonian Romanesque has both French and Spanish Romanesque characteristics, as seen in the First Presbyterian

Church in Detroit, Michigan, by architects George D. Mason and Zachariah Rice in 1891

The H.H. Richardson Complex in Buffalo, New York, first building using the Richardsonian Romanesque style The style began in the East, in and around Boston and while it was losing favor there it was gaining popularity further west. NONE of the following structures were designed by Richardson. They illustrate the strength of his architectural personality on progressive North American architecture from 1885 to 1905.

Richardsonian Romanesque Perpetuation Following his death, the Richardsonian style was perpetuated by a variety of proteges

and other architects, many for civic buildings like city halls, county buildings, court houses, train stations and libraries, as well as churches and residences. These include:

The successor firm of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, who completed some two dozen unfinished projects and then continued to produce work in the same style, and continued to employ his collaborators the Norcross Brothers for construction and engineering expertise, Frederick Law Olmsted for landscape architecture, and the English sculptor John Evans for stonecarving.

Stanford White and Charles Follen McKim, who worked in Richardson's office as young men, went on to form McKim, Mead and White and moved into the radically different Beaux-Arts architecture style.

Richardson's great admirer Louis Sullivan adapted Richardson's characteristic lessons of texture, massing, and the expressive language of stone walling, particularly at Chicago's Auditorium Building, and these influences are detectable in the work of Sullivan's own student Frank Lloyd Wright and Richardson found sympathetic reception among young Scandinavian architects of the following generation, notably Eliel Saarinen

Major Work Richardson's most acclaimed work is Trinity Church in Copley Square, Boston,

part of one of the outstanding American urban complexes built as the center piece of the newly developed Back Bay. The Boston Public Library was built across from it later by Richardson's former draftsman, Charles Follen McKim. The interior of the church is one of the leading examples of the Arts and crafts aesthetic in the US.

A series of small public libraries donated by patrons for the improvement of New England towns makes a small coherent corpus that defines Richardson's style: Libraries in Woburn, North Easton, Malden, Massachusetts, the Thomas Crane Public Library (Quincy, Massachusetts), and Billings Memorial Library on the campus of the University of Vermont.

These buildings seem resolutely anti-modern, with the atmosphere of an Episcopalian vicarage, dimly lit for solemnity rather than reading on site. They are preserves of culture that did not especially embrace the contemporary flood of newcomers to New England. Yet they offer clearly defined spaces, easy and natural circulation, and they are visually memorable. Richardson's libraries found many imitators in the "Richardsonian Romanesque" movement.

Richardson also designed six railroad stations for the Boston & Albany railroad company as well as two stations for other lines. These buildings were more subtle than his churches, municipal buildings and libraries.

Chronological list of major works 1867 Grace Episcopal Church - Medford, MA 1868 H. H. Richardson House - Clifton, Staten Island, NY 1869 Buffalo State Hospital - Buffalo, NY 1872 Trinity Church - Boston, MA (National Historic Landmark) 1874 William Watts Sherman House - Newport, RI 1875 New York State Capitol - Albany, NY 1877 Oliver Ames Free Library - North Easton, MA 1878 Sever Hall, Harvard University - Cambridge, MA 1879 Oakes Ames Memorial Town Hall - North Easton, MA 1879 Ames Monument - Sherman, WY 1880 Thomas Crane Public Library - Quincy, MA (National Historic Landmark) 1881 Boston & Albany Railroad Station - Palmer, MA 1881 Old Colony Railroad Station - North Easton, MA 1883 Billings Memorial Library - Burlington, VT 1883 Converse Memorial Library - Malden, MA (National Historic Landmark) 1883 Boston & Albany Railroad Station - South Framingham, MA 1883 Connecticut River Railroad Station - Holyoke, MA 1884 Boston & Albany Railroad Station - Newton, MA 1885 John J. Glessner House - Chicago, IL 1885 Boston & Albany Railroad Station - Wellesley Hills, MA 1887 Marshall Field Warehouse, Chicago, Illinois

Marshall Field Warehouse, Chicago, 1887

Marshall Field Warehouse, Chicago, Illinois, graded variations in rusticated stonework, vast windowed arcading spanning three floors, with not a historical detail in sight.

Marshall Field Warehouse The building architecture is

known for its multiple atria.

Its ornamentation includes a Tiffany & Co. mosaic ceiling and a pair of well-known outdoor clocks, which serve as symbols of the store.

A Tiffany & Co. mosaic dome caps a 5-story atrium in the southwest corner; the northwest section has a 13-story sky-lit atrium, and a newer atrium with a fountain in the center is bridged by double escalator banks. The building has three atria including the 5-story Tiffany &

Co. mosaic-capped ceiling one in the southwest corner.

Tiffany & Company glass mosaic ceiling

A Marshall Field's Great Clock

Looking down over the atrium in

Marshall Fields

Trinity Episcopal Church, Boston

Photo, exterior overview showing front and side elevations

Trinity Church : SteepleEven before it was completed, other architects were imitating it, but Trinity, with its ruggedstone walls and massive central tower, remains the exemplar of the Richardsonian Romanesque style.

Postcard image of Trinity Church

Front Facade

The church is two storey high and is characterized by the following:

- Clay roof- Polychromy, - Rough stone,- Heavy arches, - Massive tower,- Use of random ashlar granite,- Latin cross shape;- gabled, hipped, and pyramidal roof sections;- triple arched entrance vestibule supported by numerous columns, 2

W towers;- 2-story central tower with turrets and gables, crowned by octagonal

roof with pinnacles;- decorative brownstone trim around round arched windows, buttresses, colonnades, parish house attached by colonnaded cloister;- elaborate interior decoration by John La Farge.

Characteristics

Trinity Church : Interior

John La Farge executed murals and some of the stained-glass windows in its magnificent interior. Trinity houses an active

Episcopal parish that proudly maintains the building in pristine condition.

INTRICACIES

OF

DESIGN

Use of Semi-Circular arches

Interiors and Exterior Facade

The Sanctuary of the Church Staircase

Situated on Copley Square in Back Bay, Trinity Church is the birthplace and archetype of the Richardsonian Romanesque style.

John J. Glessner House, 1885

The exterior of the house is clad in Bragg Ville granite, laid in courses of various heights, giving the house a strong horizontal appearance. Ornamentation is minimal, and includes an arch of stylized foliage over the front entrance and a series of carved capitals on the second floor columns.The design was distinctly different from the other houses on Prairie Avenue.

Distinctive Designs for Houses Additionally, a long servant hall is placed along the

north side of the house, buffering the family spaces from the noise and dirt of 18th Street, and the brutal winter winds.

The walls of the house are pushed close to the lot lines, allowing for a spacious private courtyard within.

The courtyard allowed abundant natural light to enter the main rooms of the house through south-facing windows, and also provided a level of privacy rarely achieved in urban residences.

Another remarkable house design was William Watts Sherman’s House in which "Shingle Style" replaced the "Stick Style". It is characterized by simplicity and the attention to comfort. Richardson constructed William Watts Sherman's house in 1874-1875 by leaving the wooden structure visible.

The original house was 2.5 stories in height and basically rectangular, about 53 by 81 feet in dimensions, with porte-cochere on the east facade, and two principal entrances on the west.

Its first story was faced in pink granite ashlar, with higher stories of brick, shingle, and half-timbered stucco, diamond-panel windows grouped in long, horizontal bands, and five massive red brick chimneys. Trim materials included reddish sandstone and brownstone.

The roof was steeply gabled, with a broad single gable in front and multiple sharp gables to the rear, all originally

shingled in wood.

Ames Free LibraryThe Ames Free Library is a public library located in North Easton, Massachusetts, immediately adjacent to another Richardson building, Oakes Ames Memorial Hall.

Ames Library Richardson's design for the Ames Library is basically rectangular in plan

with the major rooms, the stack wing, hall, and reading room, arranged longitudinally.

A broad gable projects forward from the north end of the longitudinal mass. This gable is marked by the arched entry to the outside porch on the first floor and by a row of five arched windows separated by pairs of short columns supporting the arches on the second.

The gable's front facade contains a heavily arched entry on the first floor and a row of five arched stack wing windows form a horizontal band, each group of three separated by four short columns.

Construction is of warm, light-brown Milford granite laid in random ashlar with dark reddish brown Longmeadow brownstone trim. The roof is red-orange tile over wood barrel-vaulted stack wing ceiling. The fireplace in the reading room is largely the work of Stanford White.

Ames Library

Front Facade

The fireplace in the reading room is largely the work of

Stanford White

A new dynamism of interior space

Elements used in the Library Building

Column of front colonnade

Short columns used

Semi-circular arches

Detail

Oakes Ames Hall, North Easton, MA

The Ames Free library is to the right of the hall

Use of semi-circular arches

Railroad Station, North Easton, 1881-82

Heavily arched entry and Polychromy were its two main features.

Dramatic semicircular arches supported on clusters of short squat columns, and round

arches over clusters of windows on massive walls.

H.H. Richardson Complex

Across from the art gallery on the University of Vermont grounds is

the shell of the old Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane

H.H. Richardson Complex H.H. Richardson Complex is a recently-coined name for the Buffalo State Asylum

for the Insane, a large Medina red sandstone and brick hospital that stands on the grounds of the present day Buffalo Psychiatric Center in Buffalo, New York.

The complex comprised of total eleven buildings. Many of the asylum's grandest features represent Richardson’s love of cathedrals and towering masonry, from the stained glass, dual towers, interior ornate columns, Celtic fireplace ornament and high ceilings, among others.

The main set of buildings consist of a central administrative block and five pavilions progressively set back on each side, for eleven buildings total, all connected by short curved two-story corridors.

The unique exterior of the admin and wings is faced

with rough Medina sandstone, a reddish stone quarried in Orleans County.

View through a seclusion screen.

Dawn light in a second-floor dayroom.

Staircase

In 1876, pressured by a tightening budget, Richardson suggested that the outer wards on each side of the

administration be constructed out of brick rather than stone.

Psychiatric Asylum

The imposing twin towers which are the most identifiable hallmark

Complex.

One of the towers at the Complex. It housed patients for more than a century until it closed in the early

1970's.

Heavily influenced by 12th century medieval architecture

Billings Memorial LibraryThe library has been converted to a student center. Billings donated a valuable collection of books to the University of Vermont and sponsored the building of the library.

The entranceThe library has an asymmetrical entrance with two turrets of different heights, a "Syrian arch," and Romanesque arches in the top gable and tallest tower turret. Carved stone ornament continues the medieval theme.

Unlike some of Richardson's works, however, this is reddish brown sandstone, without contrasting trim.

Views of the Interiors:

Ceiling Ornamentation on the column

Later Life

Richardson died in 1886 at age 47 of Bright's disease, a kidney disorder. He was buried in Walnut Hills Cemetery, Brookline, Massachusetts.

Though not a Richardson design, H.H. Richardson's house in Brookline, MA should also be mentioned in any discussion of his buildings. Richardson spent much of his later years in the house and had a studio attached in order to limit travel (probably due to his health problems). The house has fallen into disrepair and was listed in 2007 as an endangered historic site.

Conclusion

H.H. Richardson had discovered more efficient ways for creating spaces that were interpenetrating.

He believed that what was no longer necessary for function could be made to serve a new purpose of form, by creating a new visual language of individual separation and privacy.

The massiveness of his buildings speak for themselves.

Taking continuity and unity as his keynotes, he designed free-flowing plans creating a new dynamism of interior space. He had a mastery of richly varied rustification.

Bibliography

Encyclopedia Britannica 2007 Ultimate Reference Suite E-book: Encyclopedia of 19th century Architecture, R. Stephen Sennott http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/hhr.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HH_Richardson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardsonian_Romanesque http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Ames_Free_Library.html http://flickr.com/photos/derekneuland/2563935028/in/photostream/ http://flickr.com/photos/oh_simone/2354905547/ http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/vermont/burlington/billingslib/billings.html http://www.archiplanet.com/architects/hh_richardson.html