Richardsonian Romanesque

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The Trinity Church in Boston is the most famous example of the Richardsonian-Romanesque style.
Richardsonian Romanesque shows both French and Spanish Romanesque features , as can be seen, for example, in the First Presbyterian Church in Detroit, which was built in 1891 .
Detailed view of the American Museum of Natural History .

As Richardsonian Romanesque exclusively in - one is the United States and in Canada unused - architectural style of romanesque referred that after the architect Henry Hobson Richardson was named (1838-1886). He first used elements of this style in the design of Buffalo State Hospital in Buffalo, New York , and the Trinity Church in Boston, built from 1872 to 1877, is now considered a masterpiece of his work.

Characteristics

Richardsonian Romanesque represents a separate branch of historicism , which uses stylistic elements of the Romanesque architecture of the 11th and 12th centuries from southern France, Spain and Italy. Essential features of the clearly structured, very picturesque buildings are round arches , which are often combined with low columns, recessed entrances, a multitude of variations in rustication , windowless walls that are used as a contrast to large window areas, and cylindrical towers with a conical tip, which are embedded in the walls.

The style was mainly used by architects who were active in the 1880s - and thus before the influence of Beaux Arts architecture . The original American Museum of Natural History building on 77th Street in New York City , designed by J. Cleaveland Cady , is now considered the epitome of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture . The style was also used in smaller towns, for example for the City Hall in St. Thomas, Ontario or for the Mabel Tainter Memorial Building in Menomonie .

Architects

Some of the architects who used the style in their designs had previously worked in the Richardson office. They included Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow and Frank Alden ( Longfellow, Alden and Harlow ), George Foster Shepley and Charles Allerton Coolidge ( Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge ), and Herbert Burdett.

The architectural offices, some of which only used selected elements of the style or developed their own modifications, included:

Richardsonian Romanesque also influenced the Chicago School as well as the architects Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright . The Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen was also inspired by it.

distribution

Richardsonian Romanesque had its origin in the greater Boston area, where its namesake designed Trinity Church and Copley Square . As its importance declined on the east coast, the style became increasingly popular in areas to the west such as In Denver, Colorado; however, it has not yet been definitively clarified how the westward expansion of the artists and craftsmen who used this style, consisting primarily of Italian and Irish immigrants , looked in detail. The last structures of this type were erected in the early years of the 20th century, including four smaller bank buildings in Osage County, Oklahoma .

literature

  • Mavis P. Kelsey, Donald H. Dyal: The Courthouses of Texas . Texas A&M University Press, Texas 1993, ISBN 978-0-89096-547-4 .
  • Paul Clifford Larson, Henry Hobson Richardson: The Spirit of HH Richardson on the midland prairies: regional transformations of architectural style . University Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 1988, ISBN 978-0-8138-0017-2 .
  • Jeffrey Karl Ochsner: HH Richardson, complete architectural works . MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 1984, ISBN 978-0-262-15023-1 .
  • Jeffrey Karl Ochsner, Dennis Alan Andersen: Distant corner: Seattle architects and the legacy of HH Richardson, 1880-1895 . University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA 2003, ISBN 978-0-295-98238-0 .
  • Mariana Griswold van Rensselaer: Henry Hobson Richardson and his works: Unabridged republ. of 1888 ed. Dover Publ., New York 1969, ISBN 978-0-486-22320-9 .

Web links

Commons : Richardsonian Romanesque  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marta O'Brien: Toronto's Third City Hall . Heritage Toronto. June 9, 2008. Retrieved November 25, 2014.
  2. ↑ Ulrich Althöfer: The former Villa Terfloth at the Kreuztor . In: Franz-Josef Jacobi (Ed.): City Society in Transition. Studies on the social history of Münster in the 19th – 20th centuries Century. Regensburg 1995, p. 395-416 .
  3. ^ Donald L. Johnson, Donald Langmead: Makers of 20th Century Modern Architecture: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook , Greenwood, 1997, p. 290.
  4. ↑ Claudia Ahmad, George Carney: National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Submission: Richardsonian Romanesque Banks of Osage County TR. (PDF) National Park Service , December 1983, accessed August 5, 2017 .