H. H. Richardson and the Poetry of the Earth, by Michael J. Lewis

“It would not cost me a bit of trouble,” H. H. Richardson liked to say, “to build French buildings that should reach from here to Philadelphia, but that is not what I want to do.”  What did he want to do?  It took him a decade to find out.  His answer was Richardsonian Romanesque, which used the burly forms of early medieval architecture to convey the force and energy of modern life. This talk explores the genesis of Richardson’s personal style, his early training in Paris, his breakthrough with Boston’s Trinity Church, his friendship and collaboration with Frederick Law Olmsted, and his increasing interest in geology as a design inspiration.  Although he died prematurely in 1886, his ideas about spatially continuous, abstract form would preoccupy architects for decades to come. Michael J. Lewis is a professor of art at Williams College and the architecture critic of the Wall Street Journal.

A Victorian Society of America Virtual Event