In the summer of 1882, architect Henry Hobson Richardson traveled to Europe from his home outside Boston. His goal was to experience firsthand the Medieval buildings of France, Italy and Spain that had influenced his own work but that he had previously seen only in drawings or photographs.
Richardson wrote ten letters home during his journey, noting the cities he visited and the buildings he admired. Following his return from Europe, Richardson designed some of the most significant buildings of his career, including the Allegheny County government complex in Pittsburgh, and in Chicago, the Glessner House and Marshall Field Wholesale Store. Richardson died less than four years later at the age of 47.
In 2025, Boston-area architect and photographer Michael Kuchta retraced part of Richardson’s 1882 travels in Spain, visiting the cities of Madrid, Salamanca, Avila, Zamora, and Zaragoza. Where possible, Kuchta replicated the photographs that Richardson collected during his journey. Like the pilgrims who each year travel to Santiago de Compostela in search of spiritual guidance, Kuchta traced a ‘camino de Richardson’ seeking wisdom about the nature of Richardson’s creative genius.
Trained as an architect, Michael Kuchta is a senior urban design planner at Harvard University, where he is engaged in long range planning and advises project teams on Harvard’s architectural heritage. Kuchta is the co-author of Born in Cambridge: 400 Years of Ideas and Innovators, published by the MIT Press in 2022. He writes and lectures regularly on issues of urban history, and serves on the board of History Cambridge, a non-profit organization which leverages local history to foster community.
This program will be recorded and a link will be sent to all registrants. The link will remain live for seven days following the program.
$16 per person / $13 for members
No refunds or exchanges, all ticket sales are final.