H.H. Richardson Buildings around Harvard, July 2003

Harvard University in "our fair city" of Cambridge is blessed with much interesting architecture. Here I focus on the three buildings of H.H. Richardson: Sever Hall in brick, Austin Hall in stone, and the Stoughton House in wood (shingle). Richardson has quite distinctive styles in each of these three major materials, true to their nature, and these buildings illustrate that wonderfully.

Austin Hall was designed and built 1881-1884, and served as the sole Harvard Law School building until 1907. It has delightfully rich decoration and construction in polychrome stone and wonderful carvings. It's really quite symmetric in plan and elevation, but an off-center tower adds charm and interest. Richardson's usual Romanesque arches are here slightly flattened in the porch arcade.

The Stoughton House (1882-3) is a private home, not part of the Harvard campus, though it is right next door. It has been much modified, though sympathetically, and the overall "look" is still as intended. It's quite difficult to photograph from the outside, since the main facade faces north, surrounded by a high wall. It was conceived, and perceived, as a neo-colonial design, with massive chimneys and a shingled exterior.

Sever Hall was designed and built 1878-1880, and is used for undergraduate classes. Its red brick construction and decoration is meant to echo the older red-brick buildings of Harvard Yard. The plan is Richardson's usual almost-symmetric. The flat expanses of brick wall are broken up at various scales, from very subtle bowing-out of the walls, to the varied fenestration, to wonderful carved-brick detailing.