photographic survey of architectural ornament taken during weekend trip to boston
This entry was posted on December 16 2018 by Eric
during my very brief visit to boston in late november, i took thousands of images of focusing on h.h. richardson's architecture, late 19th century ornament (e.g., carved brick) adorning houses located in the backbay neighborhood, mit chapel, a small selection of building on harvard's campus (e.g., sever hall, austin hall, ware and van brunt's victorian gothic memorial hall) and finally, brattle street and trinity church.
i've only processed around a hundred images, briefly touching on the aforementioned subjects, but hopefully when time permits, i will continue working on and posting more images, espeically of richardson's work on harvard's campus and the exterior ornament on trinty church.
additional notes and images from my boston trip below:
i researched ornamental carved brick for sometime now, but lacked any extensive and/or detailed visual documentation of in situ. fortunately, i ran across a wide array of examples on houses (built between the late 1870's and mid-1880's) located in boston's back bay.
i suspect the carved brick i documented was likely executed by the peerless brick company in philadelphia, pa. they specialized in making dense carving bricks that were rich in color and homogeneous in texture.
the dense solid face brick was either carved directly on the wall or formed into panels and carved in the company's workshop before installation. if i can make time, or maybe through multiple visits, i can create an extensive photographic study of any and all extant examples used in 19th century buildings in the boston area. i've enclosed a few examples.
photographic study of terra cotta adorning wm. ralph emerson's boston art club (1882). fabricator of the richly ornamented unglazed red terra cotta (facing dartmouth street) not known.
historic photo courtesy of boston public library.
photographic images of exterior ornament adorning h.h. richardson's trinity church (1872-77), located in boston, mass.
i spent two afternoons photographing terra cotta and sandstone ornament adorning the facades of 19th century rowhouses located in boston's back bay neighborhood. the following gallery represents a tiny fraction of my efforts towards beginning what i hope will be an exhaustive photographic study of exterior architecture ornament found on both residential and commercial structures within this notably historic neighborhood.
the survey will shed light on the universe of styles or designs selected by the architects and/or builders, along with insight and identification of the companies that fabricated the ornament. a closer look at the actual materials and methods used will be fleshed out when the survey is completed.
when time permits, i will revisit and process images of h.h. richardson's architecture on harvard's campus, along with eerro saarinen's mit campus (interior and exterior). i only managed to complete a few images documenting sever and austin hall (see below).
This entry was posted in , Miscellaneous, Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Bldg. 51 Feed & Travel on December 16 2018 by Eric
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