HENRY HOBSON RICHARDSON

Henry Hobson Richardson was born September 29, 1838 in St. James Parish, Louisiana. He was the first of four children of Bermuda-born Henry Dickenson Richardson and Catherine Caroline Priestly Richardson. Henry Hobson Richardson, known as "Fez" to his family and friends, was raised in New Orleans, but spent quite a bit of time at his grandparents' property in St. James Parish.

After spending some months at New Orleans College (now Tulane University), Richardson was admitted to Harvard in February 1856. Graduating in 1859, Richardson was accepted to the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris on November 20, 1860, only the second American to attend the school-the first being Richard Morris Hunt. Completing his training in 1865, Richardson returned to America and began his architectural career in New York City.

In February 1859, before going to the Ecole des Beaux Arts , Richardson became engaged to Julia Hayden, the sister of one of his Harvard classmates. After returning to America and winning his first commission in 1866-Unity Church in Springfield, Massachusetts, he and Julia were married in January 1867. The couple had six children: Julia Hayden (b. 1867), John Cole Hayden (b. 1869), Mary Houghton (b. 1871), Henry Hyslop (b. 1872), Philip (b. 1874) and Frederick Leopold William (b. 1876). After living on Staten Island, the family moved to Brookline, Massachusetts in 1874, where Richardson would spend the remainder of his life.

Richardson died April 27, 1886, at age 48, of Bright's Disease-a chronic renal disorder. A man of great proportions: over six feet tall and well above 300 pounds, his life was a series of health problems. Even in his early career, health problems plagued the architect-the plans for Trinity Church are said to have been made from Richardson's Staten Island bedroom. In later years, these problems controlled his life. James O'Gorman, author of H. H. Richardson: Architectural Forms for an American Society and Living Architecture: A Biography of H. H. Richardson states, "in his last years he knew he was in a race against time, that death might still his drafting pencil at any moment, and with so much good work still to be done." Richardson's late work has been described as spectacular and having changed American architecture. This says nothing to what his work would have been if he had more than the 20 years in which he worked.

The American Architect

Why is Richardson known as "The First American Architect"? He was the first American architect whose work stood out from his contemporaries, both in character and quality. In Richardson's early work, he relied heavily on European architecture for guidance and inspiration. O'Gorman believes that what we can today see as a progression to his mature work is a logical conclusion to challenge Richardson's abilities. "It is clear to us, and perhaps it eventually dawned upon him that his abilities were not challenged by designing Gothic Churches or Mansarded houses.he broke out of that mold."

The period of time between 1869 and 1872 is evidence of a change in Richardson's designs as "he swung away from the stylistic ideals of his contemporaries and began to find his own sources within the architecture of the past." The design of Trinity Church, the first example of Richardson Romanesque, a style of architecture popularized by the architect and "characterized by attention to the elements of architecture rather than to historical accuracy: to generous spaces, monumental forms, natural materials such as granite or shingles, broad openings, the studied relationship between simple solids and repetitive voids, sheltering roofs, massive chimneys, and a control of silhouette that was so different from the busy Victorian designs of his contemporaries", was the turning point in his career-towards the mature phase of his work. O'Gorman places a significant import on the design of Trinity Church, "It brought the search of 1869-72 to dramatic resolution.and also exemplifies Richardson's design process, learned at the Ecole in Paris, and his shift to resemble Romanesque precedents as the bases of his eclecticism."

Richardson was the first "to define American architecture as distinct from its European origins, as rooted in the cities and landscape of North America" according to O'Gorman. The architect's goal was "to create massive but quiet and simple buildings expressive of their basic programmatic needs." Within the last decade of his life, considered his "mature" career by O'Gorman, Richardson not only generated "a personal style in architectural design.he also generated a number of styles, varying their application as the problem in hand demanded by its site or its use." This is a very important factor in many of his domestic designs, especially Glessner House.

During the 1880s, Richardson was very busy with his career, which had by then blossomed from the Boston area to cities throughout the East and Midwest: Washington, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis. The idea that Richardson was America's first architect and that he achieved so much important work in such a short period of time suggests strongly the genius of design and love of work. At the time of his death, Richardson was working in Washington, St. Louis and Chicago.

Chicago Buildings

Henry Hobson Richardson designed four Chicago buildings during his career; today only Glessner House remains as a testament to his architectural genius. Three out of the four buildings, were in process at the time of Richardson's death and were completed by his successors: Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge.

--American Merchants Union Express Company Building, 1872 and 1874-1880. Located at 21 W. Monroe Street, this building was destroyed by fire in 1930.

--Marshall Field Wholesale Store, 1885-1887. Located on West Adams Street at South Franklin Street, this building opened June 20, 1887 at a cost of $888,007 and was 500,000 square feet on seven floors. It was demolished in May/June of 1930 for a parking lot. Richardson saw the Field Store among his most significant works.

--J.J. Glessner House, 1885-1887. Located at 1800 Prairie Avenue

--Franklin MacVeagh House, 1885-1887. Located at 103 North Lake Shore Drive at Schiller Court. This home was demolished in 1922.

Glessner House

While in Chicago working on the Marshall Field Wholesale Store, Richardson was approached by Mr. John J. Glessner about building a home for him and his family. In May of 1885, Henry Hobson Richardson visited the Glessner's lots on Prairie Avenue and prepared a rough "napkin" sketch" design for their home. In February of 1886, Richardson made the final changes to the plans for Glessner House. Unfortunately, Richardson passed away before construction began on June 1, 1886, but his successor firm Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge completed the house in 1887.

John J. Glessner had purchased three lots on Chicago's fashionable Prairie Avenue. Each lot measured 28 feet wide by 168 feet long. The total dimensions were then 84 feet wide by 168 feet long and the site was constrained by Prairie Avenue to the east, lot lines to the north and west and on the south by the northern wall of the Keith house, which was being built at the same time. Richardson took all these factors into consideration when designing an "L" shaped plan for the family rooms along with an attached Coach House.

According to architectural historian, Thomas Hubka, Glessner House is "Richardson's archetype for an attached urban house-a distillation of ideas from his detached-house plans. By adapting this plan to a constraining site, he produced a novel, contextually derived solution that broke with many traditional design practices of his era." This untraditional design was praised by both neighbor Marshall Field and landscape designer, Frederick Law Olmsted, who was a friend of Richardson and the Glessners. O'Gorman praises Glessner House by saying, "here the "quiet and monumental" is fully realized; here is a Richardsonian building without historical qualification."

Other Buildings

Overall, Richardson created 150 designs and 85 became structures. These designs included civic buildings, churches, houses, railroad stations, banks, libraries, hospitals, monuments and collegiate buildings. This is an incomplete list.

--Church of the Unity, Springfield, Massachusetts, 1866-1869. This was Richardson's first commission.

--Grace Episcopal Church, Medford, Massachusetts, 1867-1869. This was Richardson's second commission.

--Benjamin W. Crowninshield House, Boston, Massachusetts, 1868-1870.

--William E. Dorsheimer House, Buffalo, New York, 1868-1871.

--North Congregational Church, Springfield, Massachusetts, 1868, 1871-1873.

--Brattle Square Church, Boston, Massachusetts, 1869-1873.

--Buffalo State Hospital, Buffalo, New York, 1869-1880.

-Hampden County Courthouse, Springfield, Massachusetts, 1871-1874.

--Trinity Church, Boston, Massachusetts, 1872-1877. Richardson won the commission competition in 1872 for the building in Copley Square.

--R. and F. Cheney Building, Hartford, Connecticut, 1875-1876.

--Hayden Building, Washington Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 1875-1876.

--New York State Capitol, Albany, New York, 1875-1886.

--Woburn Public Library, Woburn, Massachusetts, 1876-1879.

--Oliver Ames Free Library, North Easton, Massachusetts, 1877-1879.

--Sever Hall, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1878-1880.

--Ames Memorial Building at North Easton, Massachusetts, 1879-1881.

--Ames Gate Lodge, North Easton, Massachusetts, 1880-1881.

--Crane Memorial Library, Quincy, Massachusetts, 1880-1882.

--City Hall at Albany, New York, 1880-1883.

--Boston and Albany Railroad Station, Chestnut Hill, Newton, Massachusetts, 1881.

--Percy Browne House, Marion, Massachusetts, 1881-1882.

--Nicholas L. Anderson House, Washington, D.C., 1881-1883.

--Francis Lee Higginson House, Boston, Massachusetts, 1881-1883.

--Austin Hall at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1881-1884.

--Old Colony Railroad Station, North Easton, Massachusetts, 1881-1884.

--Ames Wholesale Store on Bedford Street in Boston, Massachusetts, 1882-1883.

--Mary Fisk Stoughton House, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1882-1883.

--Grange Sard Jr. House, Albany, New York, 1882-1885.

--Converse Memorial Library, Malden, Massachusetts, 1883-1885.

--Billings Memorial Library, Burlington, Vermont, 1883-1886.

--Emmanuel Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1883-1886.

--Allegheny County Courthouse and Jail, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1883-1888. Richardson also considered this as one of his finest works.

--Ephraim W. Gurney House, Beverly, Massachusetts, 1884-1886.

-Henry Adams House, Washington, D.C., 1884-1886.

--John Hay House, Washington, D.C., 1884-1886.

--Robert Treat Paine House, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1884-1887.

--Union Railroad Station, New London, Connecticut, 1885-1887.

--Chamber of Commerce Building in Cincinnati, Ohio, 1885-1888.

--Benjamin H. Warder House, Washington, D.C., 1885-1888.

--Dr. Henry J. Bigelow House, Newton, Massachusetts, 1886-1887.

--Albert W. Nickerson House, Dedham, Massachusetts, 1886-1889.