Benjamin Henry Latrobe

Benjamin Henry Latrobe (Benjamin Henry Boneval Latrobe) , 1764-1820, American architect, b. Yorkshire, England. He is considered the first professional architect in the United States. Latrobe received his training both in architecture and in engineering in England and Germany and then practiced successfully in London. He came to the United States in 1796. He practiced there and in Richmond until 1799, when he went to Philadelphia. In 1803, President Jefferson appointed him surveyor of public buildings. Besides building residences in Washington, Philadelphia, and other cities, Latrobe did much monumental work and introduced Greek forms, an important element of the classic revival. His design (1799) for the Bank of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia was modeled after a Greek Ionic temple. This building and his Roman Catholic cathedral in Baltimore (1805-18)—the first cathedral built in the United States—make a group expressive of the best monumental architecture of the time. Other works are St. John's Church in Washington, D.C. (1816) and the penitentiary in Richmond, Va. (1797-1800). His design for "Sedgeley" (1800), a residence near Philadelphia, is supposed to be the first executed example of the Gothic revival in the country. After the burning of the Capitol he was engaged, from 1815 to 1817, in rebuilding it. Latrobe's son Henry had been sent to New Orleans to construct the city's waterworks after his father's design, but he died of yellow fever in 1817. In 1818, Latrobe sailed to New Orleans to complete the project, bringing his family overland in 1820. He too died of yellow fever. Latrobe's other sons were John H. B. Latrobe and Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 1806-78, an engineer, b. Philadelphia. He served (1847-75) as chief engineer of the Baltimore & Ohio RR, laying out the line between Washington and Baltimore.

Bibliography: See Latrobe's diary of his trips to New Orleans and his stay there, Impressions respecting New Orleans (ed. by S. Wilson, Jr., 1951); study by T. Hamlin (1955).

Latrobe, Benjamin Henry (1766–1820) US architect, b. England. He emigrated to the USA in 1796. He designed the neo-classical cathedral in Baltimore (1806–18), and worked on rebuilding the Capitol in Washington, D.C. (1815–17).

Latrobe, Benjamin Henry Boneval (1764–1820). English-born Moravian architect of French descent, educated in England and Saxony (where he absorbed many advanced ideas, partly through Freemasonry), who introduced an advanced, austere Neo-Classicism to the USA. He was a pupil of S. P. Cockerell before setting up his own office in 1790 from which he designed Hammerwood Lodge, East Grinstead, Sussex (1792), an essay in Neo-Classicism with an unfluted version of the ‘primitive’ Paestum Order of Doric, much influenced by French architects such as Ledoux. He also designed Ashdown House, Forest Row, Sussex (1793), a beautiful building having a projecting Greek Ionic circular porch with Coade-stone details. These are two of the most remarkable houses for their date in the British Isles, and show Latrobe to have been in the vanguard of Neo-Classicism, far more adventurous than any of his better-known contemporaries in England.

He emigrated to America in 1796, where, through his Freemasonic connections, he met George Washington and acquired a wide circle of influential friends. He made his mark with the very advanced Richmond Penitentiary (1797), which incorporated many of Jefferson's ideas, and then with the Bank of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (1798), the first great monument of the Greek Revival in the USA. In the following year he designed Sedgeley, a house for William Crammond on the banks of the River Schuylkill, the first Gothic Revival domestic building in the USA (destroyed). In 1803 he was appointed Surveyor of Public Buildings by Jefferson, and worked on the Capitol in Washington, DC, creating some of the finest Neo-Classical rooms in America (reconstructed with modifications after its destruction by the British in the War of 1812–15), and inventing American Classical Orders such as the corn-cob and tobacco capitals. He also advised Jefferson on the design of the University of Virginia (1817–26), and should be given credit for what is one of the most beautiful architectural ensembles in the USA. His best complete work is the RC Cathedral, Baltimore (1804–18), with segmental coffered vaults, minimalist Classicism, and shallow-domed ceilings as severe as any of their date. He contributed to the design of gardens, including that of the White House, Washington, DC. The Louisiana State Bank, New Orleans (1820), was his last building, but it was still faithful to the dignified polished Classicism he had introduced to his adopted country. His pupils included Mills and Strickland.

Bibliography

G. Brown (1970);
E. Carter et al. (eds.) (1977, 1980);
J. Cohen & and Brownell (1994);
Colvin (1995);
Hamlin (1955, 1964);
Hitchcock (1977);
R. Kennedy (1989);
Latrobe (1971);
P. Norton (1977);
Padover (ed.) (1946);
Wasmuth & and Kalman (1983)