Richardson, Henry Hobson

(born Sept. 29, 1838, Priestley Plantation, La., U.S.—died April 27, 1886, Brookline, Mass.) U.S. architect. He studied at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His designs for Boston's Brattle Square (1870–72) and Trinity (1872–77) churches won him a national reputation. He designed houses, libraries, suburban railroad stations, educational buildings, and commercial and civic structures. Instead of the narrow vertical proportions and Gothic features used by his contemporaries, he favoured horizontal lines, simple silhouettes, and large-scale Romanesque or Byzantine-inspired details. The Crane Memorial Library in Quincy, Mass. (1880–82), with its granite base, clerestory windows, tiled gable roof, and cavernous entrance arch, stands among his finest mature works. His Romanesque style had an integrity seldom achieved by his many imitators, and the functionalism of his designs presaged the work of Louis H. Sullivan.

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