Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #932324 in Books
• Published on: 1966-03-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 369 pages

Customer Reviews

Life of a Master American Architect
From back cover:

"H.H. Richardson was born into the architectural chaos of the mid-1800s and died in the architectural revolution of the age of the skyscraper, yet his genius and reputation were able to surmount the first and survive the latter. This is a study of his architecture and of the setting in which he worked. It includes detailed discussions of the social, economic, and technical history of the era and examines the architecture of Richardson's contemporaries and of those countries in which he traveled and lived.

His heritage was the romantic generation that had contemptuously renounced the austerity of the classical revival and, in the search for stylistic simulation, had borrowed indiscriminately from the rich bazaar of historic and exotic styles, the Gothic, Italianate, Norman, Byzantine. By the time Richardson had completed his education at Harvard and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, this mixed architectural diet had played havoc with the American taste.

In his maturity he developed a personal style that resolved the dilemma in which he found himself: his own good taste and judgment demanded utility, spatial tangibility, function; his public demanded pictorial surface effects. His reconciliation of these disparities resulted in his finest works: Trinity Church, Boston; the Marshall Field Wholesale Store, Chicago; the Allegheny County Courthouse and Jail, Pittsburgh; Sever Hall, Cambridge.

At the time of his death technological advances had made the skyscraper feasible, and in the succeeding years architectural form was virtually dictated by these advances. Richardson's mastery of traditional composition, mortar, polychromy, and ornament was largely forgotten."

The best current profile of a giant
This is the classic biography of Henry Hobson Richardson. Born in Louisiana (1838) and kept by a speech impediment from attending West Point, he attended Harvard and the École des Beaux-Arts and subsequently became the most influential American architect of his time (1866-86). His work was instantly popular (much of it was won in competition) and remains iconic to this day ("Richardson Romanesque"). His work established high standards for wide range of functions (churches, civic buildings, hospitals, libraries, college buildings, railroad stations) that remain difficult to meet. His office engendered architects (e.g. Charles Follen McKim and Stanford White) that later founded their own firms and become leaders in the profession.

This work remains the best biography of Richardson, but includes only 114 illustrations in small format and also lacks a chronological project summary. Those seeking more should augment this work with `H. H. Richardson: Complete Architectural Works' by Jeffrey Karl Ochsner (MIT 1982) for an excellent project catalogue; `Henry Hobson Richardson and His Works' by Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer (published in 1888 and reissued by Dover in 1969) which includes some of Richardson's major works; and `Selected Drawings: H. H. Richardson and His Office' by James F. O'Gorman (published by MIT in 1974) which provides a useful selected collection of office drawings.