Charles Bulfinch

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Portrait of Charles Bulfinch

Charles Bulfinch (* 8. August 1763 in Boston , Province of Massachusetts Bay ; † 15. April 1844 ibid ) was an American architect . He is considered to be the first American born man to make architecture his profession .

Bulfinch worked in his native Boston as well as in Washington, DC , where he completed the rotunda of the United States Capitol and the dome above as Commissioner of Public Building . His works are known for their simplicity, balance, and good looks - they were the foundation of the Federal Style that dominated 19th century American architecture .

Early life

Thomas Bulfinch (father of Charles), ca.1757
Hannah Apthorp (Mrs. Charles Bulfinch), ca.1788

Charles Bulfinch was born in Boston on August 8, 1763 , the son of the well-known physician Thomas Bulfinch and his wife Susan Apthorp . He attended the Boston Latin School and later Harvard University , where he received a bachelor's degree in 1781 and a master's degree in 1784 .

He then completed a grand tour through Europe from 1785 to 1787 , where he was influenced by classical architecture in Italy and in England by revolutionary architecture, among others by Christopher Wren , Robert Adam and William Chambers . Thomas Jefferson was something of his mentor in Europe, as he himself was later to Robert Mills .

Upon his return to the United States in 1787, he became a proponent and proponent of the Columbia Rediviva's world tour under the command of Robert Gray . It was the first US ship to completely circled the world. In 1788 he married his first cousin Hannah Apthorp . Her sons include Thomas Bulfinch (1796–1867), author of Bulfinch's Mythology , and the Unitarian pastor and author Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch (1809–1870). In 1791 Bulfinch was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Career

The Massachusetts State House , completed in 1798
The Old Connecticut State House , built in 1796

The first building designed by Bulfinch was Hollis Street Church in 1788. His early works also include a series of memorials to the American Revolution on Beacon Hill (1789), the Federal Street Theater (1793), which is partly on the Royal Crescent of John Wood- based Tontine Crescent (1793–1794, no longer existent today), the Old State House in Hartford (1796) and the Massachusetts State House (1798).

In the course of ten years Bulfinch built an amazing variety of private houses in the Boston area, including the Pleasant Hill by Joseph Barrell (1793), three houses for Harrison Gray Otis (1796, 1800, 1806) and the John Phillips House (1804). He also built several church buildings in Boston, of which only St. Stephen's Church (built 1802-1804) is still standing today.

From 1791 to 1795 and from 1799 to 1817 Bulfinch was a member of the Boston Board of Selectmen , where he took over its chairmanship in the second period. In addition, he was superintendent of the Boston Police and took care of the improvement of the roads, drainage and lighting. Under his guidance, both the infrastructure and the administrative center of the city were transformed into a dignified classical style. Bulfinch was responsible for the design of Boston Common , the redesign and expansion of Faneuil Hall, and the construction of India Wharf . In his time in Boston he also designed the Massachusetts State Prison (1803), the Boylston Market (1810), the University Hall of Harvard University (1813-1814), the Meeting House in Lancaster (1815-1817) and a wing ( Bulfinch Building ) Massachusetts General Hospital (1818), the completion of which was overseen by Alexander Parris , who was working for Bulfinch in Boston, when he was called to Washington.

Despite his diverse activities and involvement in the city administration, Bulfinch was insolvent several times , the first time in 1796. He spent the month of July 1811 as a convict in a prison that he ironically designed himself because of unpaid debts. His work as a selectman was not paid, and he received only $ 1,400 to design and oversee the State House .

In the summer of 1817, Bulfinch's roles as selectman, designer and city council representative coincided when then- US President James Monroe visited the city. Both men were almost without interruption during the week-long visit together on the road, and a few months later appointed Monroe Bulfinch in 1818 as the successor to Benjamin Latrobe as Architect of the Capitol in Washington, DC , which had been burned by the British in 1814, in part, . In this position, he received an annual income of $ 2,500 plus expenses.

As Commissioner of Public Building , Bulfinch completed the wings and the central part of the United States Capitol , designed its west face and portico, and gave the originally wooden dome his own design, which was replaced by the current cast iron dome in the mid-1850s . In 1827 the National Academy of Design in New York elected him an honorary member ( Honorary NA ). In 1829, 36 years after the foundation stone was laid, he completed the construction of the Capitol. During his time in Washington Bulfinch also drew plans for the State House in Augusta (1829-1832).

In 1830 he returned to Boston, where he died on April 15, 1844 and was buried in King's Chapel Burying Ground . His grave was later moved to Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge .

In 1943, an American Liberty freighter named SS Charles Bulfinch entered service and was scrapped in 1971.

Selected works

literature

  • Charles A. Place: Charles Bulfinch. Architect and citizen . Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, Boston MA et al. a. 1925 (Unabridged republished. (= Da Capo Press series in architecture and decorative art 16, ZDB -ID 260045-6 ). Da Capo Press, New York NY 1968, OCLC 637094870 ).
  • Harold Kirker: The architecture of Charles Bulfinch . Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA a. a. 1998, ISBN 0-674-04391-X .
  • Ellen Susan Bulfinch (Ed.): The life and letters of Charles Bulfinch, architect. With other family papers . Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, Boston MA et al. a. 1896 ( Online in Google Book Search - Reprint. (= Art history and reference series 45). Franklin, New York NY 1973, ISBN 0-8337-0417-6 , OCLC 671588 ).
  • Bulfinch, Charles . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 4 : Bishārīn - Calgary . London 1910, p. 772 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Commons : Charles Bulfinch  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Edward Digby Baltzell: Puritan Boston & Quaker Philadelphia . Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick NJ et al. a. 1996, ISBN 1-56000-830-X .
  2. ↑ Louis Kronenberger, Emily M. Beck (Ed.): Brief lives. A biographical guide to the arts . Allen Lane, London 1972, ISBN 0-7139-0257-4 , pp. 104 .
  3. ^ Past Academicians "B" / Bulfinch, Charles Honorary 1827 . ( Memento of the original from August 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. nationalacademy.org; accessed on June 16, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nationalacademy.org
personal data
SURNAME Bulfinch, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American architect
DATE OF BIRTH August 8, 1763
PLACE OF BIRTH Boston , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH April 15, 1844
Place of death Boston , Massachusetts