Christ Church (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
| Christ Church | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| National Register of Historic Places | |||
| National Historic Landmark | |||
| Historic District Contributing Property | |||
 The church in 2012 |
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| location | Cambridge , Massachusetts , United States | ||
| Coordinates | 42 ° 22 '30.8 " N , 71 ° 7' 22.7" W | ||
| surface | 0.5 acres (0.2 ha ) | ||
| Built | 1761 | ||
| architect | Peter Harrison | ||
| NRHP number | 66000140 | ||
| Data | |||
| The NRHP added | October 15, 1966 | ||
| Declared as an NHL | October 9, 1960 | ||
| Declared as CP | April 13, 1973 | ||
The Christ Church (also Christ Episcopal Church ) is a historic church building in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the United States . It belongs to the Episcopal Church of the United States of America and was recognized as a National Historic Landmark in 1960 . Since 1973 it has also been a Contributing Property of the Cambridge Common Historic District .
architecture
The building, consisting largely of oak , was completed in 1761 and is one of the few buildings that can be clearly assigned to the architect Peter Harrison .
The church differs significantly from other sacred buildings from the colonial era. The three-story church tower has a square floor plan and is kept relatively unadorned; the cruciform belfry has windows with lunettes . A Carnies Doric order runs around the entire building .
The outside simplicity continues inside. The supporting columns originally rose directly from the ground and had Doric order capitals . In the course of repair work in the 1820s, however, these were each placed on a column beam and provided with capitals of Ionic order . The Ionic order pilasters on the walls between the windows were also added in this context. Today the church has two rows of columns along the central nave , each with six individual, smooth columns of Ionic order. The semicircular pulpit is lit by a Palladian window.
Historical meaning
Christ Church is one of the colonial buildings still preserved in Cambridge and today offers a peaceful counterpoint to everyday life at neighboring Harvard University . In 1759, a group of wealthy city merchants joined forces to build a new church building. They did not want to invest more than £ 500 (around £ 93,000 today) for this, which is why it was to be a simple structure with no gallery . To save further costs, a belfry was planned instead of a pointed tower.
Most of the donors saw Peter Harrison as one of only a few men in New England who had an idea of "modern" architecture. Harrison presented his plans to the clients in 1760, and they were so impressed with the designs, which were actually made as a free service, that they paid him £ 45 (now approx. £ 9,000) in compensation. Despite being required to spend no more than £ 500, the building ended up costing around £ 1,300 (around £ 251,000 today). Because of this cost overrun, there was no more money left to decorate the pillars, for example.
The predominantly British Loyalist parish was dispersed during the American War of Independence , so that the church was hardly used anymore. After the battles at Lexington and Concord , it was confiscated as a military headquarters in 1775. It was not until 1829 that the community had grown again enough to be able to hire a rector . Between 1839 and 1861 the number of parishioners rose by leaps and bounds, so that the church building had to be lengthened from 18 m to 25 m in 1857. Further renovations and maintenance measures followed.
See also
- List of National Historic Landmarks in Massachusetts
- List of entries on the National Register of Historic Places in Cambridge
literature
- Patricia Heintzelman, Charles Snell: National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form. (PDF) United States Department of the Interior , National Park Service , October 10, 1975, accessed August 31, 2017 .
- Hugh Morrison: Early American Architecture . Oxford University Press, New York 1952, OCLC 251409037 .
- William H. Pierson, Jr .; William H. Jordy: American buildings and their architects . Doubleday, Garden City, New York 1970, OCLC 462694059 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Massachusetts. National Park Service , accessed August 10, 2019.
- ↑ a b c cf. Heintzelman / Snell, p. 2.
- ↑ cf. Heintzelman / Snell, p. 3.
- ↑ a b cf. Heintzelman / Snell, p. 6.