Sualeh Fatehi
The Boston Public Library building, and the Trinity Church, on opposite sides of Copley Square, are both fine examples of Boston architecture. They add an imposing grandeur to this opening in
Boston's busy streets. Copley Square allows tourists and busy office workers alike enough space to take in and admire the entire buildings. In the last half of the nineteenth century, the
Back Bay was reclaimed from the sea, and developed with majestic public buildings. When built, the church and the library were seen as keystones in what would be a plan to bring cultural and
scientific institutions into Boston.
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| Trinity Church |
The Trinity Church was designed in a competition set out by the flamboyant preacher Phillip Brooks, and his congregation. Henry Hobson Richardson's firm Gambrill and Richardson won the
competition, and Richardson moved from New York to Brookline to work on the church. Boston is where he developed his trademark style, Richardsonian Romanesque, of which the Trinity Church is
the epitome.
The Boston Public Library was designed in 1888, during a period of popularity of classical design, when American Neoclassicism was popular. It was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead, and
White shortly after Richardson's death. McKim, Mead, and White were the intellectual heirs of Richardson. Both Charles Follen McKim and Henry Hobson Richardson trained at Ecole des Beaux Arts
in Paris after studying at Harvard University. McKim was a draftsman for Richardson during the Brattle Square Unitarian Church project.
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| Boston Public Library |
Although the Boston Public Library is very different in style, and serves a different purpose than the church across the square from it, it is a building of great weight and significance. The
Boston Public Library was designed as "a palace for the people and dedicated to the advancement of learning", and modeled on the Venetian palazzo of the Renaissance. In some sense, the square
grey building is a quiet foil to the more colorful and ornate exterior of the Trinity Church, its counterweight at the other end of Copley Square.
The Trinity Church is decorated in polychromatic stone, which over the arches forms a checkerboard pattern of pink Monson granite, the main building material, and red Longmeadow sandstone.
The Boston Public Library is more staid, at least on the exterior, with its light granite façade. The use of granite turned the tide of the "brown decades" in Boston architecture. However,
the Library has a hidden inner courtyard, which was designed by McKim to resemble the interior courtyard of Bramante's Palazza della Cancelleria at the Vatican. The courtyard is in yellow
stone, which forms a surprising contrast to the grey exterior. Just as the courtyard forms the quiet and serene interior of Library, the Church's Greek cross plan makes for a large interior
space conducive to spiritual reflection.
Trinity Church is articulated with round-headed Romanesque arches. The Richardsonian Romanesque style draws on the visual strength of rusticated raw rock faces, with structural features like
arches and lintels made of a different type of stone. In contrast to Trinity Church's deliberately unfinished look, the Library has smooth granite walls, topped with a copper creneau, and
cast iron sconces.
