Henry Hobson Richardson

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HH Richardson (Portrait of Hubert von Herkomer, 1886)

Henry Hobson Richardson (born September 29, 1838 in St. James Parish , Louisiana , † April 27, 1886 in Brookline , Massachusetts ) was an American architect .

biography

Henry Hobson Richardson was born in Louisiana. He was a great-grandson of the inventor and philosopher Joseph Priestley .

Senator Judah P. Benjamin gave him a letter of recommendation for West Point . He also passed the entrance exam, but then had to move to Harvard because his father had died and Harvard was the cheaper option. Richardson studied at Harvard College between 1856 and 1859 . At first he showed an interest in civil engineering , but later switched to architecture , whereupon he went to Paris in 1860 and attended the École des Beaux-Arts . After Richard Morris Hunt , he was the second US citizen to attend the École. He graduated there in 1862. Before returning to the United States, he worked in the office of the architect Théodore Labrouste . On January 1, 1866, he opened his own architectural office in New York.

In February 1859 he met Julia Hayden, a fellow student's sister, whom he married in January 1867 in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1876 the couple moved to Brookline, a suburb of Boston , where Richardson lived and had his offices until his death.

In his work over the next few years, however, Richardson did not prefer the classic style of the École des Beaux-Arts, but rather was inspired by the medieval architecture of Europe, which he got to know during his time in France . He particularly favored the Romanesque , which he expanded into his own style, the so-called Richardsonian Romanesque . In 1878 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Among his collaborators were Charles Follen McKim and Stanford White , who also became well-known architects.

Richardson died of kidney malfunction in 1886 at the age of 47 and was buried in Walnut Hills Cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts.

plant

Trinity Church in Boston
Ames Memorial Library , North Easton , Massachusetts
Albany Town Hall

His first assignment was in 1869 for the Church of the Unity in Springfield, the city in which he was married. The church, which has now been demolished, already showed his orientation towards medieval architecture, but in contrast to his later work was more influenced by the Gothic than the Romanesque. In 1870 he got his first major contract with the construction of the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane, (now Richardson Olmsted Complex ). This complex is also considered the birthplace of the Richardson Romanesque, a form of neo-Romanesque that is characterized by particularly bulky buildings. His most famous work, however, is the Trinity Church in Boston. After the old church failed to survive the Great Boston Fire of 1872, Richardson was hired for the new building, which he completed in 1877. In his relatively short career he designed a number of important buildings, particularly for public and institutional purposes. In addition to the Trinity in Boston (1874), the Witherspoon Hall in Princeton (1877), the Sever and Austin Halls for Harvard University (1880 and 1884), he created stone bridges in the Back Bay Fens (1880) and numerous libraries and railway depots in the Boston area. Among his other major assignments were Albany City Hall (1880), the Allegheny County Building in Pittsburgh (1883-88), the Glessner House in Chicago (1885-97) and the pre-eminent department store at Marshall Field in Chicago (1886).

In the early 1970s, the Haines House was identified as his design, also a department store in Boston. This was interesting in that it was related to the family of his wife, Julia Gorham Haines, whom he married on January 3, 1867.

Over the next few years he built a number of libraries in the New England states, all of which are stylistically similar. He also designed six train stations for the Boston & Albany Railroad, which, although not quite as massive as the rest of the buildings, still bear his signature unmistakably. He was also a member of the team of architects that built the New York State Capitol in Albany between 1875 and 1883 . The Great Western Staircase in this building, also known as the Million Dollar Staircase, was designed by him.

John J. Glessner House , Chicago, Illinois 1986

Another work of his is in Chicago on South Prairie Avenue at number 1800. This is the John J. Glessner House . The house was recorded as a historical monument by the NRHP on April 17, 1970 with the number 70000233.

The following list gives a selection of Richardson's works in chronological order:

Lululaund (postcard around 1900)

swell

  1. ↑ John J. Glessner and family ( Memento of the original from February 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.glessnerhouse.org
  2. ↑ NRIS
  3. ↑ Jeffrey Karl Ochsner: HH Richardson: Complete Architectural Works . MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1982, ISBN 978-0-262-65015-1 .

further reading

  • Robert Schmitt: The Architecture of HH Richardson and His Times . Publisher: The MIT Press; second edition 1966. ISBN 978-0-262-58005-2
  • Jeffrey Karl Ochsner: HH Richardson: Complete Architectural Works. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982 .; Reprint edition. ISBN 978-0-262-65015-1
  • James F. O'gorman (Author), Cervin Robinson (Photographer): Living Architecture . Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition, 1997. ISBN 978-0-684-83618-8
  • Margaret H. Floyd: Henry Hobson Richardson. A genius for architecture . Photographs by Paul Rocheleau. Publisher: The Monacelli Press; First Edition edition, 1997. ISBN 978-1-885254-70-2

Web links

Commons : HH Richardson  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
personal data
SURNAME Richardson, Henry Hobson
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American architect
DATE OF BIRTH September 29, 1838
PLACE OF BIRTH St. James Parish , Louisiana
DATE OF DEATH April 27, 1886
Place of death Brookline , Massachusetts