Bulfinch, Charles

Bulfinch, Charles (1763–1844), architect.Born to privilege in colonial Boston, Bulfinch attended Harvard College and then made a grand tour of Europe, 1785–1787. He was especially impressed by contemporary British architecture, particularly the government buildings of William Chambers and the refined and delicate early neoclassicism of Robert Adam. Returning to Boston, Bulfinch designed buildings as an amateur architect, the pleasurable pursuit of a gentleman. However, his ambitious and architecturally progressive Tontine Crescent (1793–1794) brought his financial ruin. Thenceforth, Bulfinch supported himself as a professional architect. In 1799, he became Boston's superintendent of police (with a regular salary) and was named chair of the board of selectmen. Bulfinch played a major role in reshaping Boston's image through his many buildings, notably his domed Massachusetts State House (1795–1798), as well as making the city more livable through his administrative duties. Building mostly in brick, he designed elegantly conceived buildings with Adamesque motifs, forms, and proportions, while exhibiting the restraint and economy characteristic of the Federal style. Bulfinch moved to Washington, D.C., when in 1818 he was officially appointed architect of the U.S. Capitol, a building that had been under construction since 1793. By 1829, Bulfinch had brought the Capitol to completion. His most notable contribution to earlier designs was the creation, under political pressure, of a taller and more distinctive central dome (replaced in later expansion). Although he relied primarily upon British sources, Charles Bulfinch established some of the most compelling early architectural expressions of the new republic.
See also Architecture; Early Republic, Era of the.

Bibliography

Harold Kirker and and James Kirker , Bulfinch's Boston, 1787–1817, 1964.
Harold Kirker , The Architecture of Charles Bulfinch, 1969.

Craig Zabel