HENRY GIBSON RICHARDSON

Wordiness and crushed buildings did not conform to neo-emerging in the late XIX century, the quest for compositional integrity and generalized architectural forms. This desire is reflected in the wide dissemination of neoromanskih buildings in many European countries and the United States.

The largest figure of "Romanesque revival" was a prominent American architect, Richardson, whose works marked on neoromanticheskoe direction Nouveau.

Henry Gobson Richardson was born Sept. 29, 1838 in New Orleans. In 1855-1859 years he studied architecture at Harvard University. Richardson was one of the first American architects, who studied in France. He studied at the Paris School of Fine Arts in studio LD Andre (1860-1862). Richardson finished the training in the workshop of Theodore Labrusta - elder brother of a prominent French architect Henri rationalist Labrusta, where he worked draftsman.

However, neither Classical rationalism Labrusta nor gotitsizm Violle le Duc, "Dictionary" was a reference book that Richardson did not have a noticeable impact on the creativity of the future leader of the Romanesque Revival. " The main source that have shaped the creative path of Richardson, was Romanesque architecture of southern France.

Richardson returned to the United States in October 1865. In November 1866 he was working on a church in Springfilde. His architectural career has helped a happy marriage to Julia Gorhem Hayden in Boston on Jan. 3, 1867. Newlyweds moving to New York, where born, five out of six of their children. Here in 1867, Henry opened the architectural office in partnership with Charles D.

Photo — «Henry Gibson Richardson»

Gembrillom, which worked and then eleven years old.

Early construction of the architect, such as the Church of the Holy Trinity (1872-1877) in Boston, not much different from the popular French eclectic variations on the theme of Romanesque architecture. Impetus to the emergence of such variation was created in 1860 years of efforts by the end of the century interest in the archaic form of art. At that time, adopted the view that only the primitive sources provide the basis for a fruitful and creative development in this sense, the romance takes precedence over the Gothic. To use this advantage to be a new attitude to historical prototypes.

The inability of most architects to overcome the "literalism", typical of the eclecticism of their inability to see the details of a lead to many eclectic buildings in Romanesque style.

Richardson was the first architect, who eventually managed to unleash the potential of the anticipated in Romanesque architecture. In such buildings 1880′s, as a library in Quincy, Chestnat Hill station, court and prison complex in Pittsburgh, he breaks away from the strongly literally attempts to reproduce the Romanesque style. Architect creates a new form, which is the basis for the further development of the Roman line of modernist architecture.

Buildings distinguished Richardson stressed monumentality, the use of grossly okolotyh stone blocks for the wall, the use of ornamental elements.

According to Мамфорда, Richardson "has tried to bring in the cultural life of his time powerful masculinity. He is tired of delicate feminine architecture, as well as from the weak Uitmen poetry.

Photo — «Henry Gibson Richardson»

Rather than become the voice of business in the instability of Golden Age, Richardson objected to any fragility. He built for eternity, as if speaking contemporaries: "Try to destroy this building, if you can!" This is a dramatic assertion of stability meets the aspirations of the people of his generation. "

This peculiarity of architecture led to Richardson′s for its wide impact in the construction of buildings of banks, insurance companies, courts, military departments and similar structures designed to embody its character and firmness of the financial viability of public fabric.

Another important feature of Richardson′s work was his "regionalism. " Richardson first asked to use local materials - granite, sandstone, skillfully using the texture and color of the local stone. This gave the opportunity to create a harmonious unity of architecture and its environment that was particularly true in suburban Richardson buildings in a shingled style.

One of the founders and the greatest masters "shingled style" Richardson and the architecture of suburban residential homes has remained faithful to its principles of innovation based on tradition. His work in this area was a "combination of an established tradition of wooden construction and freedom of creativity within this tradition. "

"Regionalism" brings together works of Richardson with the search of his British contemporaries - the first generation of architects "Arts and Crafts Movement" and included it in the mainstream of progressive tendencies, pre-modern architecture.

Photo — «Henry Gibson Richardson»

Richardson has always paid great attention to the functional side of their buildings, but maintained a bias against the romanticism of industrialism. As the GR Hitchkok, even the affinity Labrustu A. , and collaborate with J. Gittorfom in the construction of the North Station in Paris, not stirred his interest in the use of metal structures. Later followers of Richardson also avoided to include metal structures in the composition of its stores, creating a strong stylistic contrast between the "neoromanskimi" buildings with metal and glass facades of many German, Belgian and French Art Nouveau architect.

Creativity Richardson was one of the most vivid manifestation of the development of the romantic tradition in architecture of the seventies-eighties. However, it is already possible to detect trends that lead outside this tradition, and led to convergence neoromanticheskogo and neoklassitsisticheskogo for Modernism. In seeking to establish in the appearance of their buildings impression monumentality, solidity, stability, Richardson came to the idea of timeless universality of architectural forms, which is embarked on the path to neoklassike.

A clear tribute to the classical tradition Richardson gave in its last building - warehouse store Marshall Field in Chicago.

Launched in 1885, a wholesale store Marshall Field in Chicago was the best work of Richardson. It was completed the following year after the death of the architect, who died April 27, 1886.

This building with its massive stone walls, occupies a special position in the history of Chicago as a whole.

Photo — «Henry Gibson Richardson»

First of all, it has stimulated the work of the Chicago school, and individual characteristics of this facility are reflected in other buildings in the business quarter of Chicago in 1880 s.

Criticism Luis Sallivenom architecture of that time was equally strong and sound. However, he believed Shop Field an oasis in the desert. In the architecture of this building, probably affected by the first impression of Richardson from the walls of the rustic rough stone. Smooth the massive stone wall was one of the basic elements of American architecture - the fortifications of the period before the revolution, trade buildings times student years at Harvard Richardson. Expressive of this building can be explained by its Romanesque style, and at the same time, it is purely local in nature, stemming from the artistic transformation of the elements that have arisen on American soil.

At the European architecture of Richardson′s influence over England. The first publication in English journals and other buildings Richardson Architects "Romanesque revival" refers to 1880 m year. Since that time, Richardson′s influence can be noted at the suburban built architect "Arts and Crafts Movement. " In the construction of public buildings, this influence is traced in the works of H. Townsend.

Creativity Richardson was also an important source of national guidelines for Finnish architecture beginning of XX century.