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An atmospheric text resonates more profoundly thanks to some 150 photographs capturing the quiet grandeur of the buildings designed by Henry Hobson Richardson (1838-86). Born in Louisiana, Richardson made his career in the North, aided by his personal charm and the social connections he made while a Harvard undergraduate. He invented American architecture with masterpieces of vigorous historicism such as Boston's Trinity Church; even the modernists who followed were influenced by Richardson's veneration of architecture as important public art. Architecture historian James F. O'Gorman evaluates his subject's work and life appreciatively but with discernment. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

FINALLY----a long, gorgeous, color-photo Richardson book!!
This is just the kind of big, sumptuous, exhaustive book that Richardson has always deserved. Part coffee-table book, part monograph----entertaining, informative, great to look through. I grew up near Boston and Richardson's churches, train depots, and libraries were a part of the background until I took a close look at Trinity Church and realized that the same person who designed THAT designed all these other structures as well. Richardson not only revived Romanesque architecture but pointed the way to modernism. He was a pivotal figure who didn't live long enough. This well-produced book does him justice.

Quintessential Richardson
Anyone interested in Romanesque architecture and American architecture would be interested in this book. The quality of the images are outstanding as is the text. The book describes Richardson's complete artistic career and his numerous buildings in New England, Chicago, and throughout the U.S. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

This book is the definitive guide to all of H.H. Richardson's work, built and unbuilt, extant and demolished - his municipal offices, educational buildings, department stores, libraries, railroad stations, churches, and private residences. ... Read more

Book Description

On the afternoon of 6 June 1889, a fire in a cabinet shop in downtown Seattle spread to destroy more than thirty downtown blocks covering 116 acres. Disaster soon became opportunity as Seattleís citizens turned their full energies to rebuilding: widening and regrading streets, laying new water pipes and sewer lines, promulgating a new building ordinance requiring construction in the commercial core, and creating a new professional fire department. A remarkable number of buildings, most located in Seattleís present-day Pioneer Square Historic District, were permitted within a few months and constructed within a few years of the Great Seattle Fire. As a result, the post-fire rebuilding of Seattle offers an extraordinarily focused case study of late-nineteenth-century American urban architecture.

Seattleís architects seeking design solutions that would meet the new requirements most often found them in the Romanesque Revival mode of the countryís most famous architect, Henry Hobson Richardson. In contrast to Victorian Gothic, Second Empire, and other mid-nineteenth-century architectural styles, Richardsonís Romanesque Revival vocabulary of relatively unadorned stone and brick with round-arched openings conveyed strength and stability without elaborate decorative treatment. For Seattleís fire-conscious architects it offered a clear architectural system that could be applied to a variety of building types -- including office blocks, warehouses, and hotels -- and ensure a safer, progressive, and more visually coherent metropolitan center.

Distant Corner examines the brief but powerful influence of H. H. Richardson on the building of Americaís cities, and his specific influence on the architects charged with rebuilding the post-fire city of Seattle. Chapters on the pre-fire city and its architecture, the technologies and tools available to designers and builders, and the rise of Richardson and his role in defining a new American architecture provide a context for examining the work of the cityís architects. Distant Corner describes the new post-fire commercial core and the emerging network of schools, firehouses, and other public institutions that helped define Seattleís neighborhoods. It closes with the sudden collapse of Seattleís economy in the Panic of 1893 and the ensuing depression that halted the cityís building boom, saw the closing of a number of architectsí offices, and forever ended the dominance of Romanesque Revival in American architecture.

Distant Corner offers an analysis of both local and national influences that shaped the architecture of the city in the 1880s and 1890s. It has much to offer those interested in Seattleís early history, the building of the city, and the preservation of its architecture. Because this period of American architecture has received only limited study, it is also of importance for those interested in the influence of Boston-based H. H. Richardson and his contemporaries on American architecture at the end of the nineteenth century. ... Read more

Book Description

introduction by William H. Pierson, Jr.

In this book leading scholars reconsider the significance of the late nineteenth-century American architect Henry Hobson Richardson, perhaps best known for his design of Boston's Trinity Church. Against the long-held view of Richardson as an isolated and proto-modernist genius, they argue for a broader understanding of his work within the context of his times. Viewed this way, Richardson becomes a more challenging figure--an architect who in many ways was shaped by and was consistent with his era, even as he dominated it.

Thomas C. Hubka and Margaret Henderson Floyd examine individual Richardson buildings as vessels for his ideas. Francis R. Kowsky and James F. O'Gorman clarify our understanding of Richardson and his work in comparison to his peers Frederick Law Olmsted and Frank Furness. Jeffrey Karl Ochsner considers the legacy of Richardson's influence. In addition to shedding new light on the architect, the book shows how much Richardson scholarship has changed and matured over the course of a century.

Copublished with the Oakes Ames Memorial Hall Association. ... Read more

Book Description

One natural outcome of the educational reform movement of the 1840s was the growth of the American public library. Though the first public libraries were housed in post offices and town halls, even in local drug stores, growing book collections soon forced cities and towns to recognize the need for larger, more appropriate buildings. Some 450 public libraries were built in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The most important and influential architect of the era who built librairies was Henry Hobson Richardson (1838-1886), perhaps best known for his design of Boston's Trinity Church.

The primary focus of Kenneth Breisch's Henry Hobson Richardson and the Small Public Library in America is on Richardson's designs for public libraries in Woburn, North Easton, Quincy, and Malden, Massachusetts, as well as an unbuilt proposal for the Hoyt Library in East Saginaw, Michigan. In addition to placing them within the broader history of American library design, Breisch offers a close examination of these buildings as participants in the cultural, political, and economic developments of the period. Since more than 80 percent of the public libraries built in the latter half of the nineteenth century were privately endowed--as were all of Richardson's library commissions--his discussion of the role of philanthropy, in particular, illuminates the perceived meaning and function of public libraries to the monied classes, as well as their function as memorials to deceased family members.

Breisch also examines the role played by the library profession in the development of modern library planning theory during this period, a role that often clashed with the goals of the architects commissioned to design the library buildings. Although this conflict eventually led the American Library Association to condemn Richardson's buildings as unsuitable for library work, his designs still had enormous influence on the architectural vocabulary of the institution. The fact remains that Richardson invented and refined a significant prototype for the smaller American public library building. ... Read more

Book Description

This digital document is an article from New Criterion, published by Foundation for Cultural Review on April 1, 1998. The length of the article is 2194 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Living Architecture: A Biography of H. H. Richardson.(Review)
Author: J. Duncan Berry
Publication: New Criterion (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 1998
Publisher: Foundation for Cultural Review
Volume: 16Issue: 8Page: 67(1)

Article Type: Book Review

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