September 29: HHR

On this day in 1838 Henry Hobson Richardson was born.

Some architects are really good in the close-up, or the far-away, or the middle-view.  It’s a rare, too-rare architect, who gets everything right, at every vantage, at every angle.  Richardson did that.  His buildings have an interesting-but-not-busy profile, perfect compositions in plan and elevation, brilliant arrangement of a material palette that is beguilingly simple.  His buildings mark compelling silhouettes, packed with details for anyone who wants to bother to look up.  Your eyes will wear out long before you exhaust the delight of a Richardson building.

Richardson died at just forty-eight years old, already with a tremendous legacy behind him, yet with so much unused talent buried along with him.  Surely you want to read the Matters of Taste post on this great, lost hero.

Image: the basement windows at Trinity Church Rectory.  How many architects make stupid windows into the dumb basement a moment of bricky thrill?  Not nearly enough, that’s how many.  HHR shows us how it’s done. (Clio’s)

April 27: RIP HHR

On this day in 1886, Henry Hobson Richardson died.

Richardson is architecture’s James Dean–if we substitute buildings for movies, rotund waistcoats for slinky Levi’s, bushy beardy cheer for devil-may-care handsomeness, 48 years of life as an architect for 24 years of life as an actor, and dying of kidney disease for a fatal car crash.

Oh, we can go on and on for this great architect.  Trinity Church is Richardson’s East of Eden, the Marshall Field Wholesale Store his Rebel Without A Cause, and Allegheny County Courthouse is, of course, Giant.  Even if the comparisons wear thin, we should all agree that both died too young, with so much left to do.

Read more about HHR–and what we’d serve him for dinner–at the Matters of Taste site

Image: portrait of Richardson by by Sir Hubert von Herkomer, 1886 (from this source)

September 29: the sultan of stone, the maven of mortar, the baron of brick …

On this day in 1838 Henry Hobson Richardson was born.

Some architects are really good in the close-up, or the far-away, or the middle-view.  It’s a rare, too-rare architect, who gets everything right, at every vantage, at every angle.  Richardson could do that.  His buildings have an interesting-but-not-busy profile, perfect compositions in plan and elevation, brilliant arrangement of a material palette that is beguilingly simple.  His buildings mark compelling silhouettes, packed with details for anyone who wants to bother to look up.  Your eyes will wear out long before you exhaust the delight of a Richardson building.

Richardson died at just forty-eight years old, already with a tremendous legacy behind him, yet with so much unused talent buried along with him.  Surely you want to read the Matters of Taste post on this great, lost hero.

Image: the basement windows at Trinity Church Rectory.  How many architects make stupid windows into the dumb basement a moment of bricky thrill?  Not nearly enough, that’s how many.  HHR shows us how it’s done. (Clio’s)

April 27: RIP HHR

On this day in 1886, Henry Hobson Richardson died.

Richardson is architecture’s James Dean–if we substitute buildings for movies, rotund waistcoats for slinky Levi’s, bushy beardy cheer for devil-may-care handsomeness, 48 years of life as an architect for 24 years of life as an actor, and dying of kidney disease for a fatal car crash.

Oh, we can go on and on for this great architect.  Trinity Church is Richardson’s East of Eden, the Marshall Field Wholesale Store his Rebel Without A Cause, and Allegheny County Courthouse is, of course, Giant.  Even if the comparisons wear thin, we should all agree that both died too young, with so much left to do.

Read more about HHR–and what we’d serve him for dinner–at the Matters of Taste site

Image: portrait of Richardson by by Sir Hubert von Herkomer, 1886 (from this source)