Born in the Northeast
“Wait, the movement of the Midwest, didn’t start in the Midwest?“ Correct, the movement of the Midwest was actually a movement of the Northeast. Believe it or not, this is exactly how it started. The Richardsonian Romanesque era began in the Northeast as a part of the Romanesque Revival(Insert the surprise music). Yes, the movement/style began within another movement/style. So then naturally, the question is “where does Richardsonian Romanesque actually come from?” Well it comes from the man considered to be the father of the Richardsonian Romanesque, Henry Hobson Richardson. The man, who loved architecture, ultimately followed through with his practice and began designing. It was in fact the Trinity Church in Boston, that would be his breakthrough as an architect. He was inspired by the romanesque buildings of European countries and wanted to implement the style in the U.S. and thus, the style of Richardsonian Romanesque was born! The Trinity was considered a huge success and as a result caught on as an architectural style. This began contrasting and separating itself well, from a subset of Romanesque Revival. Its popularity continued to rise, and if you wanted, you could begin making reasonable architectural style arguments against other prominent Romanesque Revival buildings, like the Basilica of St Michael the Archangel. We could see the Richardsonian side begin to take off, and this would lead to other buildings not just in Massachusetts, but more along the Northeast. It wasn’t long after that the style began to take on different types with buildings like the Allegheny County Courthouse and Jail, and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Allegheny Branch, in Pittsburgh. As we can see the style began growing larger and larger among popularity within the northeast!
Here, we can see the progression of style throughout its most popular period, from the mid to late 19th Century, and beyond. Keep note of this progression as we move through the Exhibition!