Richard Upjohn

Richard Upjohn 1802-78, American architect, b. England. He came to the United States in 1829. A skilled cabinetmaker and draftsman, he lived first in Manlius, N.Y., and then in New Bedford, Mass., where he set himself up as an architect. His first commissions were private houses in Bangor, Maine (1833-36). He had executed St. John's Church, Bangor (1836-39), and several smaller commissions when in 1839 he was engaged to rebuild Trinity Church, New York City. Moving to New York, he established an office there. The new Trinity Church (1846) was carefully modeled on English examples and inaugurated a new phase in the Gothic revival. Upjohn designed the old St. Thomas's Church in New York City (later burned), several churches in Brooklyn, the chapel of Bowdoin College, smaller Gothic churches, and many residences. He was a founder of the American Institute of Architects and its first president (1857-76). His son, Richard Michell Upjohn, 1828-1903, architect of the Connecticut State Capitol, was associated with his father.

Bibliography: See E. M. Upjohn, Richard Upjohn, Architect and Churchman (1939).

Upjohn, Richard (1802–78). English-born architect, he emigrated to the USA in 1829, and settled in Boston, Mass., where he established a practice in 1834. His earliest works were the serene and pleasing Greek Revival houses in Bangor, Me. (1833–6), and a Gothic Revival house in Gardiner, Me. (1835), but he is remembered primarily as a church-architect and as a Gothic Revivalist. His masterpiece was the Second Pointed Trinity Church, New York (1841–6), which shows the influence of A. W. N. Pugin (it resembles the church depicted in Plate H of The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture (1841)), and gained critical acclaim. St Mary's, Burlington, NJ (1846), with its handsome crossing-tower and broach-spire, was derived from the English medieval Church of St John the Baptist, Shottesbrooke, Berkshire, illustrations of which, from drawings by Butterfield, had been published by the Oxford Society for Promoting the Study of Gothic Architecture (later called the Oxford Architectural Society). Upjohn's Trinity Chapel, New York (1846), was also Anglo-Gothic in style.

Upjohn produced some buildings in the Romanesque style, e.g. the Church of the Pilgrims, Brooklyn, New York (1844–6), Bowdoin College Chapel and Library, Brunswick, Me. (1845–55), and St Paul's Church, Baltimore, Md. (1854–6), the last more like a true Rundbogenstil building based on Lombardic exemplars. He built an enormous number of churches, many of some distinction, and also designed other building types, a fact often obscured by his reputation as a church-architect. He published Upjohn's Rural Architecture in 1852 which shows something of his grasp of composition and style. He was first President of the American Institute of Architects which he helped to found.

Bibliography

Pierson & and Jordy (1978);
Placzek (ed.) (1982);
Stanton (1968);
E. Upjohn (1939);
R. Upjohn (1975)

Upjohn, Richard Michell (1828–1903). English-born American architect, the son of Richard Upjohn. He worked closely with his father, becoming a junior partner in 1853. The earliest building for which he alone appears to have been responsible was Madison Square Presbyterian Church, New York (1853–4). He introduced an almost Rogue High Victorian Gothic style to the USA, as at the Grace Church, Manchester, NH (1860), and the spiky, rather frantic north gates of Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York (1861–5). The Connecticut State Capitol, Hartford (1872–8), a showy American interpretation of Continental Gothic Revival, with many gables, crested roofs, and an extraordinary (and somewhat incongruous) high cupola, is his most famous work. He published an influential paper on Colonial architecture in New York and the New England States in 1869.

Bibliography

D. Curry & Pierce (eds.) (1979);
Dictionary of American Biography (1948);
Placzek (ed.) (1982);
Proc. of the Third Annual Convention of the AIA (Nov. 1869), 47–51;
E. Upjohn, E. M. (1939)