Henry Hobson

Richardson

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Tanya Pahwa
2K6/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.
Career
 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.
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 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.

The Lee County, Texas Courthouse, 1899: Richardsonian Romanesque has both French and Spanish
cautious Romanesque features applied to a Romanesque characteristics, as seen in the First Presbyterian
conservative design Church in Detroit, Michigan, by architects George D. Mason and
Zachariah Rice in 1891
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.
A Marshall Field's
 Its ornamentation includes a Looking down over
Great Clock
Tiffany & Co. mosaic ceiling the atrium in Tiffany & Company
and a pair of well-known Marshall Fields glass mosaic ceiling
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.
Trinity Episcopal Church, Boston

Photo, exterior overview showing front and

side elevations
Trinity Church : Steeple
Even before it was completed, other architects
were imitating it, but Trinity, with its rugged
stone walls and massive central tower, remains
the exemplar of the Richardsonian Romanesque
style.

Postcard image of Trinity Church

Characteristics
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, Front Facade
- 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.
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.
 I
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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, The roof was steeply gabled, with a
and two principal entrances on the west. broad single gable in front and multiple
sharp gables to the rear, all originally
 Its first story was faced in pink granite ashlar, with shingled in wood.
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.
Ames Free Library
The 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

A new dynamism of interior space

The fireplace in the reading

room is largely the work of
Stanford White
Elements used in
the Library Building

Semi-circular arches

Short columns used

Detail Column of front colonnade

 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

Dramatic semicircular arches supported on

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

Heavily arched entry and Polychromy were its two

main features.
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.
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.
View through a seclusion screen.
Dawn light in a second-
floor dayroom.
Psychiatric Asylum

One of the towers at the Complex. The imposing twin towers which Heavily influenced by 12th
It housed patients for more than a are the most identifiable hallmark century medieval architecture
century until it closed in the early Complex.
1970's.
 Billings Memorial Library
The 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 entrance
The 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