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HENRY HOBSON RICHARDSON (1838-1886)

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 300 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HENRY HOBSON See also:RICHARDSON (1838-1886)  , See also:American architect, was See also:born in the See also:parish of St See also:James, See also:Louisiana, on the 29th of See also:September 1838, of a See also:rich See also:family, his See also:mother being a granddaughter of the famous Dr See also:Priestley, the See also:English dissenting refugee and See also:man of See also:science . He was graduated from Harvard University in 1859, and going immediately to See also:Paris to study See also:architecture, entered the 1 See also:cole See also:des See also:Beaux-Arts . The See also:Civil See also:War, which See also:broke out in the See also:United States while he was in the school, prevented his return to Louisiana, and stripped his family of their possessions, so that See also:Richardson provided for his own support by working in the offices of practising architects in Paris, till the fall of 1865 . Coming back, he established himself in New See also:York, where he soon made his way into practice as an architect . In 1878 he moved to See also:Boston, where he passed the remaining years of his See also:life, designing there most of the See also:work that made his reputation . He had married in 1867 See also:Miss Julia Gorham See also:Hayden of Boston; he died on the 27th of See also:April 1886, not yet See also:forty-eight years old . Richardson's career was See also:short, and the number of his See also:works was small indeed compared with the See also:attention they attracted and the See also:influence he See also:left behind him . The most important and characteristic are: Trinity See also:church and the so-called Brattle Square church, in Boston; the alterations in the See also:State Capitol at See also:Albany; the See also:county buildings at See also:Pittsburg; See also:town halls at Albany, See also:Springfield and See also:North See also:Easton; town See also:libraries at See also:Woburn, North Easton, See also:Quincy, See also:Burlington and See also:Malden; Sever See also:Hall and See also:Austin Hall at Harvard University; the Chamber of See also:Commerce at See also:Cincinnati . Trinity church, the Pittsburg buildings and the Capitol at Albany were works of See also:great importance, which have had a strong influence on men who followed him and brought him wide See also:acknowledgment . It is notable that American architects who have studied in See also:Europe, especially in Paris, are See also:apt to See also:drift either into a pathless See also:eclecticism or into the English current . Richardson did neither . The, Romanesque that he saw in Europe, especially in the See also:middle and See also:south of See also:France, appealed so strongly to his sense for See also:mass and broad picturesqueness that he soon followed its leading; away from the See also:style he had learned in Paris .

His earliest work was See also:

modern See also:French in style; his first church, in Springfield, a startlingly See also:independent version of English See also:Gothic . Yet See also:half a dozen buildings made the transition to that derivative of Romanesque to which afterwards in all his buildings he steadfastly adhered . In Trinity church, his first monumental work, perhaps his finest, he broke away absolutely from the prevailing English Gothic See also:fashion . Instead of the ,.sng Latin See also:cross with aisles and transepts, he made a wide cross almost See also:Greek in See also:plan, with short arms fifty feet broad and aisles that are only passages, a See also:narthex flanked by two western towers, a See also:nave of one See also:double See also:bay, an eastern See also:arm prolonged into a .great See also:apse of the full width of the See also:crossing, over which sits a massive square See also:tower . The arms of the church are See also:barrel-vaulted in See also:wood; under the great tower is a See also:flat coffered See also:ceiling a See also:hundred feet above the See also:floor . The style, though mixed, shows his surrender to the attraction of the churches in See also:Auvergne, which have furnished the material for the See also:design of the apse . The central tower is a See also:reminiscence of the See also:noble See also:lantern of the old See also:cathedral of See also:Salamanca, but the square outline is insisted on instead of the polygonal, and the forms are in other ways much changed . The alteration of the Capitol at Albany, half a dozen years later, shared with See also:Leopold Eidlitz, was a See also:compromise in style, and so lacks the sure handling of his best work, except in that See also:part of the interior in which he was untrammelled, the See also:Senate Chamber and the great See also:staircase . In the buildings at Pittsburg, on the other See also:hand, he was See also:free from interference, and these satisfied him more than any other of his buildings . His great design for the new cathedral at Albany, an See also:adaptation of the Romanesque forms of Auvergne to a large modern problem, would have displayed his mature manner, and been perhaps his greatest work; but the plan did not lend itself to the tradition or the See also:ritual of the See also:Anglican Church, and it was rejected, to his great disappointment . At first the breadth of his compositions was offset by a richness of See also:ornament which he afterwards called flamboyant, but there was a continual growth in simplicity . Some of his imitators have abused his example, See also:running into See also:mere baldness and brutality, but his own work never lost the fineness of quality with which he began, nor the adequacy of its detail .

Richardson's uncommon See also:

personality so embodied itself in his works that it cannot be overlooked . He had an inexhaustible See also:energy of See also:body and mind, an See also:enthusiasm more genial than combative, but so abounding and at times vehement that few men and few bodies of men could resist him . Abounding energy he had, but not See also:health . A serious bodily injury, and later a chronic malady, made his last years a See also:constant struggle with suffering and infirmity, See also:borne with indomitable cheerfulness, but at last fatal . It is likely that the small number of his designs enhanced their quality . He put twice the labour into his work that the See also:average architect would have given to it, and often twice the See also:time, but the result was apt to be twice as See also:good . He found American architecture restless, incoherent and exuberant; his example did much to turn it back to simplicity and repose . He came as near to establishing a style as it is given to any one man to come; but the tendency of the time was too strong, and the classic styles, reasserting themselves, once more drove out the See also:medieval . The best known See also:book about Richardson is Mrs See also:Schuyler See also:van See also:Rensselaer's H . H . Richardson and his Works (Boston, 1888) . (W .

P . P .

End of Article: HENRY HOBSON RICHARDSON (1838-1886)
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