h.h. richardson

Henry Hobson Richardson, Architect; born in Priestley Plantation, La. He graduated from Harvard (1859) and studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. He returned to open his practice in New York in 1866, in an early partnership (1867--78) with Charles Dexter Gambrill, designing chiefly churches. After employment in Paris, he began practice (1866) in New York City but moved to Brookline, Mass., in 1874. Trinity Church in Boston (1872-77) was his first monumental work; its French Romanesque design was …

…rather it was his departure from convention. Grandeur, strength, and distinction, he demonstrated, could be achieved without ornamentation. The versatility of concrete, steel and glass had not yet developed. Richardson’s work did, however, maximize the utility of masonry while demonstrating the reduction of design to function rather than have it merely anchor an elaboration of form. This approach was a precursor to the techniques, which would find fullest expression with the new building materials.