Richardson, H.H.

H. H. Richardson: Architectural Forms for an American Society

Three American Architects: Richardson, Sullivan, and Wright, 1865-1915

H. H. Richardson: The Architect, His Peers, and Their Era

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.

H.H. Richardson, Complete Architectural Works

The Architecture of H.H. Richardson and His Times, Second Edition

Distant Corner: Seattle Architects and the Legacy of H.H. Richardson

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.

Henry Hobson Richardson. A genius for architecture. Photographs by Paul Rocheleau

Constructed over a century ago, the buildings of Henry Hobson Richardson (1838-1886), America's leading architect at the end of the nineteenth century, brought international acclaim to American architecture. During his twenty-one-year career, Richardson drew inspiration from many wellsprings of medievalism, thus placing his work within the Arts and Crafts tradition. His architecture came to be recognized as quintessentially American, and it inspired and greatly influenced the work of others who followed him, most notably Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. Richardson's powerful, unified structures -- in which vernacular, provincial, and primitive sources fuse with an elemental consciousness of natural environment and regional landscape -- expressed the spirit of his own era yet transcended time, and today still stand as an inimitable bridge between the past and the future.

This unparalleled publication pairs the research of a renowned architectural historian and the vision of an exceptional architectural photographer, producing the first full-color critical review of this important architect's work. Margaret Henderson Floyd illuminates new and surprising aspects of Richardson's remarkable story, placing his buildings within the architectural ambience of nineteenth-century England and New England, while Paul Rocheleau has photographed most of the significant extant buildings to create a volume as important visually as it is textually. The stunning photographs of Richardson's work -- over two hundred and all in color -- are supplemented with archival photographs and drawings.

Henry Hobson Richardson and the Small Public Library in America: A Study in Typology

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.

The Spirit of H.H. Richardson on the Midland Prairies: Regional Transformations of Architectural Style (Great Plains Environmental Design Series)

Living Architecture: A Biography of H. H. Richardson.(Review): An article from: New Criterion

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: 16 Issue: 8 Page: 67(1)

Article Type: Book Review

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