H.H. Richardson in Buffalo - LINKS

H. H. Richardson's
John Jacob Glessner House
and
Buffalo State Hospital Administration Building

Glessner House	Buffalo State Hospital Administration Building
Glessner: heavy, rough-cut, coursed (continuous layer of building material), ashlar granite which was quarried in New England	Hospital: heavy, rough-cut, ashlar (squared), reddish brown Medina sandstone – five feet thick, quarried in nearby Medina and transported via the Erie Canal
Glessner: Arched side entry . Note the voussoirs	Hospital: Arched front entry. Note the voussoirs
Glessner: Arch ornamentation over main entry	Hospital: Romanesque arch over main entry. Note the plant ornament at the end of the ribs (detailed below)
Glessner: Tower	Hospital: Twin towers
Glessner: Plant (tree of life) ornamenatation over front entrance	Hospital: Leaf ornamenatation over front entrance
Glessner: Ornamented Engaged capital in front of building: lion?	Hospital: Ornamented Engaged capital in front of building: plant motif
Glessner: Dormer	Hospital: Dormer

H.H. Richardson designed three buildings in Buffalo:

• The Louis XIII style William Dorsheimer House at 434 Delaware Avenue (1871)
• The Romanesque style William H. Gratwick House (1888, but demolished in 1919)
• The Romanesque style Buffalo State Hospital. - now known as the Buffalo Psychiatric Center

Since both the State Hospital and the Gratwick house were both designed in Romanesque style, it would interesting to compare them. This is difficult since the Gratwick house is lost forever. However, a greater appreciation of Richardson's Romanesque style may be gained by comparing the State Hospital administration building to another Romanesque style building: the Glessner House in Chicago.

The Glessner House
1800 S. Prairie Avenue, Chicago (now a museum)

John Jacob Glessner, a vice president for International Harvester, a farm machinery company centered in Chicago, moved to Chicago from Ohio in 1870. He and his family chose to live on fashionable Prairie Avenue, on the corner of Prairie and 18t. They had lived in Chicago for 15 years,
many of those at a home on Washington Street. He commissioned Richardson, who was the leading architect of the time in Chicago.

The finished granite mansion — completed in 1887, a year after the architect's untimely death. — reminds many of a medieval fortress. Stone grates on the ground-floor windows, and slim openings on the side of the house recall medieval archers’ slits.

This may not be accidental: the Glessners had experienced a break-in in a previous home. Glessner House was designed with a security system/burglar alarm, which may attest to the fear of intrusion.

What my attest to the small windows, grating on the ground floor and other exterior features is that Richardson designed the house as a winter residence, which it was, to have large windows in rooms exposed to southern winter light. For the most part, those rooms are family rooms and also rooms used for entertaining.

Another reason for the imposing exterior facades may be the privacy of the Glessners, who were not seeking an ostentatious home, but one that they were comfortable with and in and one which protected their privacy.

The house is not totally uninviting. The tree of life is found in the stone tympanum over the front door and lions grin in ornament between the egg-and-dart motif and the dentil course.

Buffalo State Hospital
400 Forest Avenue, Buffalo, New York
U.S. National Historic Landmark

The Buffalo State Hospital was the first state asylum in Western New York. It is the first major example of Richardson's personal revival of Romanesque, the style with which his name is popularly identified.

The entire complex was comprised of ten connected buildings, with an additional administration building in the center. Patients were moved into the half finished complex in 1880, but the complete project was not finished until 1895, nine years after Richardson's death.

The administration building has monumental, medieval, double, identical towers (each 185 feet tall), each with four corner turrets and dramatically steep copper roofs mysteriously punctuated with dormered windows, all of which gave the administration building a rather sinister appearance — a complaint also heard about the Glessner house.

Architectural Style

• Both: Richardsonian Romanesque

• Hospital: heavy, rough-cut, ashlar (squared), reddish brown Medina sandstone – five feet thick, quarried in nearby Medina and transported via the Erie Canal
• Glessner: heavy, rough-cut, coursed (continuous layer of building material), ashlar granite which was quarried in New England

• Hospital: The administration building has 2 huge identical towers, each 185 feet tall. Each tower has four conical turrets.
• Glessner: One conical tower on the right side of the house

• Both

• Hospital: Main entrance has three arches
• Glessner: Arch over main and side entrances (as well as over right side window)

• Hospital: The engaged columns are ornamental
• Glessner: On right side entrance

• Hospital: Front entrance
• Glessner: Side entrance

• Hospital: Engaged (partly embedded) front entrance columns
• Glessner: Engaged (partly embedded) columns between third floor front windows

• Both

• Hospital: Dentils
• Glessner: Dentils, Tree of life over main entrance, egg and dart

• Hospital:
• Glessner:

• Both: between second and third floors

• Hospital: Frederick Law Olmsted and his partner Calvert Vaux planned the hospital grounds, which originally covered more than 200 acres. The grounds, like those of a great chateau, were both ornamental and productive. Landscaped parkland surrounded the main buildings and provided a space for quiet recreation. Behind the buildings a large tract of farmland extended to Scajaquada Creek. Here the institution grew much of its own food and provided work -- considered to have therapeutic value -- for many patients.
• Glessner: The Glessner house's floor plan is a C-shape sitting directly on the corner of 18th street and Prairie Avenue. The structure forms a garden on the interior, and most of the private living areas of the house overlook this interior garden.

Sources:

• Betsy Hutula, Program & Volunteer Coordinator Glessner House Museum
  
  
• "Suburban Architectural Monuments, " by Jamie Houghtlin  (online 2002)
  
  
• "Identifying American Architecture," by John J.-G Blumenson. New York: Norton. 198

Color photos and their arrangement © 2002 Chuck LaChiusa
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