Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th- and 12th-century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesque characteristics. Richardson first used elements of the style in his Richardson Olmsted Complex in Buffalo, New York, designed in 1870, and Trinity Church in Boston is his most well-known example of this medieval revival style. Multiple architects followed in this style in the late 19th century; Richardsonian Romanesque later influenced modern styles of architecture as well.
This very free revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish and Italian Romanesque characteristics. It emphasizes clear, strong picturesque massing, round-headed "Romanesque" arches, often springing from clusters of short squat columns, recessed entrances, richly varied rustication, blank stretches of walling contrasting with bands of windows, and cylindrical towers with conical caps embedded in the walling.
Architects working in the style
The style includes work by the generation of architects practicing in the 1880s before the influence of the Beaux-Arts styles.
Some of the practitioners who most faithfully followed Richardson's proportion, massing and detailing had worked in his office. These include:
Overseas, Folke Zettervall was influenced by the Richardson style when he designed several railway stations in Sweden during this period.[4] In Finland, Eliel Saarinen was influenced by Richardson.[5]
Dispersion
The original building for the Toledo Club in Toledo, Ohio, 1900s
Research is underway to try to document the westward movement of the artisans and craftsmen, many of whom were immigrant Italians and Irish, who built in the Richardsonian Romanesque tradition. The style began in the East, in and around Boston, where Richardson built the influential Trinity Church on Copley Square. As the style was losing favor in the East, it was gaining popularity further west. Stone carvers and masons trained in the Richardsonian manner appear to have taken the style west, until it died out in the early decades of the 20th century.
^"Kumla järnvägsstation" [Kumla Railway Station]. lansstyrelsen.se (in Swedish). Retrieved 27 March 2019. Byggnaden är starkt inspirerad av den amerikanske arkitekten Henry Hobson Richardssons arkitektur.
^Johnson, Donald L. and Donald Langmead, Makers of 20th Century Modern Architecture: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook, Greenwood, 1997, p.290
Kelsey, Mavis P. and Donald H. Dyal, The Courthouses of Texas: A Guide, Texas A&M University Press, College Station Texas 1993 ISBN0-89096-547-1
Kvaran, Einar Einarsson, Architectural Sculpture in America unpublished manuscript
Kvaran, Einar Einarsson, Starkweather Memorial Chapel, Highland Cemetery, Ypsilanti, Michigan, Unpublished paper 1983
Larson, Paul C., Editor, with Susan Brown, The Spirit of H. H. Richardson on the Midwest Prairies, University Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis and Iowa State University Press, Ames 1988
Ochsner, Jeffrey Karl, H. H. Richardson: Complete Architectural Works, MIT Press, Cambridge MA 1984 ISBN0-262-15023-9
Ochsner, Jeffrey Karl, and Andersen, Dennis Alan, Distant Corner: Seattle Architects and the Legacy of H. H. Richardson, University of Washington Press, Seattle WA 2003 ISBN0-295-98238-1
Van Rensselaer, Mariana Griswold, Henry Hobson Richardson and His Works, Dover Publications, Inc. NY 1959 (Reprint of 1888 edition) ISBN0-486-22320-5
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