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Reviews
Distant Corner: Seattle Architects and the Legacy of H.H. Richardson
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By Jeffrey B. Ochsner and Dennis Alan Anderson
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University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2003. Illustrations, photographs, notes, index. 448 pages. $60.00 cloth.
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Reviewed by William F. Willingham
Portland, Oregon
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| In this masterful study
of architectural practice in late nineteenth-century Seattle, Washington,
Jeffrey Ochsner and Dennis Anderson have produced a model of how
architectural history should be written. Twenty years in the making,
Distant Corner is an exceptional work of research, narrative,
and analysis. The book focuses on architects and their design solutions
for rebuilding Seattle after fire destroyed thirty blocks in the
heart of the city's commercial district in June 1889. Specifically,
the authors expertly delineate the process whereby Seattle's architects
drew upon the Richardsonian Romanesque style in designing new commercial
structures in the aftermath of the fire. |
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The Richardsonian Romanesque style grew out of the work of H.H. Richardson and other architects in the American East and Midwest during the 1870s and 1880s. The authors note that, as developed by Richardson, "the Romanesque Revival mode was never a unified or singular tendency, but always encompassed a variety of directions" (p. 137). That was true of Richardson's own work and the contributions from other architects, particularly those in Chicago and Minneapolis–St. Paul. The response of architects to the Richardsonian Romanesque style was shaped largely by their own experiences in building and design, largely within the prevailing Victorian modes. What the Romanesque approach offered, the authors argue, was "a system for organizing a solid and impressive modern architecture of fire-resistive masonry construction and it was to this mode that Seattle architects turned." Still, the application of the Richardsonian Romanesque by Seattle's architects often proved inconsistent: "Works which are pure examples of the mode are actually few in number. Romanesque elements were sometimes applied with a very non-Richardsonian capriciousness or even arbitrariness. Further, clear and direct relationships between building plans and elevations often are not evident" (p. 138). |
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In developing their argument, the authors are careful to provide a solid historical context. This is important when discussing the transmission of architectural influence, especially at a time when most architects rarely wrote or spoke about their design processes or ideas. In one key finding, the authors show that the architectural and popular press of the day were critical in the transmission process. In particular, an eastern architectural journal, American Architect and Builder, and the midwestern professional press, such as Inland Builder and Northwestern Architect, heavily influenced Seattle's architects. The authors clearly establish the influence of works by architects in Chicago and Minneapolis–St. Paul on Seattle's practitioners. |
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The authors also provide an in-depth local context for their case study. They sketch the nature of Seattle's built environment before the fire and give the background of the city's architectural community. They include information on the late nineteenth-century building technology available to designers and consider the historiography covering Richardson's role in developing a new American architectural style. The heart of the book, though, discusses the major works of architects Elmer Fischer, William Boone, Saunders and Houghton, John Parkinson, and others completed during the post-fire period. The authors clearly establish that few of the buildings from this era were pure examples of Richardsonian Romanesque design and that most contained older, Victorian elements that drew on their designers' previous professional experience. The authors provide useful information on the professional practice of Seattle's architects and also note that economic stringency after 1890 resulted in buildings of a smaller scale and with more restrained embellishment. They point out that by the early 1890s Seattle's architects had begun to move away from the Richardsonian Romanesque mode and on to more classical designs. |
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| Distant
Corner is a clearly written case study of one city's architectural
development under the influence of the Richardsonian Romanesque
style that avoids a simplistic, linear interpretation by anchoring
the narrative in a carefully contextualized analysis of stylistic
transmission. The work sets a high standard for similar studies
of this type of architectural history. The book has been handsomely
designed and produced. Especially helpful to readers are the abundant
illustrations of the buildings covered and their placement adjacent
to the text where they are discussed. The detailed endnotes and
an appendix listing the major works of the city's leading architects
in the 1890s contain a wealth of historical and architectural information
that contribute to making this a work of lasting significance. |
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