Boston Flora

Tag: H.H. Richardson

  • Monday, June 12, 6:00 pm – A Description of the New York Central Park

    Monday, June 12, 6:00 pm – A Description of the New York Central Park

    A Description of the New York Central Park by Clarence C. Cook, issued in 1869, is recognized as the most important book about the park to appear during its early years. This work has been republished with a new Introduction by Maureen Meister that reveals the roles of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in the creation of the book, which served in part to champion their vision for a major public park–a park that would become a model for the nation. For more information, see https://nyupress.org/books/9781479877461/

    Maureen will speak at The Gibson House Museum on Monday, June 12, with a reception at 6 and talk beginning at 6:30. $10 for Gibson House members, $12 for nonmembers. Please pre-register at info@thegibsonhouse.org or 617-267-6338.

    Maureen Meister is an art historian who has taught for many years at Boston-area universities including Tufts, Lesley, and Northeastern. She is the author of Arts and Crafts Architecture: History and Heritage in New England and Architecture and the Arts and Crafts Movement in Boston: Harvard’s H. Langford Warren and is the editor of H. H. Richardson: The Architect, His Peers, and Their Era.

  • Wednesday, May 10, 7:00 pm – Building Old Cambridge

    Old Cambridge is the traditional name of the once-isolated community that grew up around the early settlement of Newtowne, which served briefly as the capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and then became the site of Harvard College. This abundantly illustrated volume from the Cambridge Historical Commission traces the development of the neighborhood as it became a suburban community and bustling intersection of town and gown. Based on the city’s comprehensive architectural inventory and drawing extensively on primary sources, Building Old Cambridge considers how the social, economic, and political history of Old Cambridge influenced its architecture and urban development.

    Old Cambridge was famously home to such figures as the proscribed Tories William Brattle and John Vassall; authors Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and William Dean Howells; publishers Charles C. Little, James Brown, and Henry O. Houghton; developer Gardiner Greene Hubbard, a founder of Bell Telephone; and Charles Eliot, the landscape architect. Throughout its history, Old Cambridge property owners have engaged some of the country’s most talented architects, including Peter Harrison, H. H. Richardson, Eleanor Raymond, Carl Koch, and Benjamin Thompson.

    The authors, Susan Maycock and her husband Charles Sullivan, explore Old Cambridge’s architecture and development in the context of its social and economic history; the development of Harvard Square as a commercial center and regional mass transit hub; the creation of parks and open spaces designed by Charles Eliot and the Olmsted Brothers; and the formation of a thriving nineteenth-century community of booksellers, authors, printers, and publishers that made Cambridge a national center of the book industry. Finally, they examine Harvard’s relationship with Cambridge and the community’s often impassioned response to the expansive policies of successive Harvard administrations.

    Susan and Charles will speak at Porter Square Books on Wednesday, May 10 beginning at 7 pm. For more information visit www.portersquarebooks.com.

  • Tuesday, May 5, 6:00 pm – Arts and Crafts Architecture: History and Heritage in New England

    Anyone who has spent time in New England will recognize the century-old buildings that Maureen Meister will discuss in a slide lecture on Tuesday, May 5 at The Gibson House Museum, 137 Beacon Street, that draws upon her new book, Arts and Crafts Architecture: History and Heritage in New England (University Press of New England). Focusing on the 1890s through the 1920s, she will explain how a group of Boston architects and craftsmen were influenced by English Arts and Crafts theories to produce works that are now landmarks, admired for their exquisite ornament. At the same time, the buildings reflect a rich intellectual culture that flourished in New England one hundred years ago. A reception begins at 6, with the lecture at 7. For more information email info@thegibsonhouse.org.
    Maureen Meister is an art historian who writes about American art and architecture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She is the author of Architecture and the Arts and Crafts Movement in Boston: Harvard’s H. Langford Warren, 2003, and was volume editor of H. H. Richardson: The Architect, His Peers, and Their Era, 1999. She holds a doctorate from Brown University and an A.B. from Mount Holyoke College. Since 1998, she has taught at Tufts University.

  • Sunday, May 18, 11:00 am – 12:30 pm – Historic Gems of the Back Bay Fens

    From once foul mud flats to a recreated salt marsh to today’s gardens and park land, the Fens has undergone many transformations in the last 130 years.  Join Emerald Necklace docents as they talk and walk the landscape on Sunday, May 18, uncovering the layers of history from Olmsted’s 19th-Century sanitary improvement and H.H. Richardson structures to the 20th-Century transformations that brought gardens, memorials, and ball fields to the Fens.  What do a 17th-Century Japanese Temple Bell, a historic bridge made of Roxbury puddingstone, the oldest continually operating World War II Victory Garden in the country, and a tree once thought to be extinct have in common?  They all reside in the Back Bay Fens.  Learn about these and other historic gems on a guided walking tour that is sure to bring out the history detective in you.  Meet your guide at 11 am at the Shattuck Visitor Center, 125 The Fenway.  Free and open to the public.  Contact Jeanie Knox at jeanine@emeraldnecklace.org for more information, or call 617-522-2700. Image below is from 1892.

    http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Ymx9e66vrGc/TNo8kH9j1mI/AAAAAAAANAg/75lIXzLQoZE/s1600/110026r.jpg

  • Monday, September 24, 6:00 pm – Puddingstone, Pinnacles and Pointed Arches: Church Construction in the Back Bay 1860 – 1880

    Please join the members and friends of the Gibson House Museum for a tour of churches of the eastern Back Bay lead by architectural historian Ed Gordon. We will view ecclesiastical edifices built in the eastern part of the neighborhood from Arlington to Dartmouth Streets during the first twenty years of the Back Bay’s massive land making project. During the course of the tour we’ll touch on topics ranging from architect Arthur Gilman’s unusual choice of English Georgian as the style for the Arlington Street Church (below) through Richard Upjohn’s early use of Roxbury puddingstone for the Church of the Covenant to the roles played by colorful personalities such as H.H. Richardson and Phillips Brooks in shaping the design of Trinity Church.

    Meeting Place: The Gibson House Museum, 137 Beacon Street, Boston (between Arlington and Berkeley Streets)

    Admission: $10 Members GHM & VSA/NE $12 Non Members. For information, visit www.thegibsonhouse.org.

  • Tuesday, November 1, 7:00 pm – The La Farge Christ Preaching Window

    John La Farge’s Christ Preaching (1883) –newly returned to Trinity Church after a multi-year restoration–is Trinity Church’s crowning glory and one of the artist’s most significant windows. Julie Sloan, consultant to the restoration, will explore the window’s history, design, and restoration and La Farge’s relationship to Trinity Church in a lecture to be held Tuesday, November 1 beginning at 7 pm.

    Julie Sloan is one of the leading stained-glass consultants in North America. She is the author of Conservation of Stained Glass in America and is adjunct professor of historic preservation at Columbia University, where she has taught stained glass restoration since 1985. Ms. Sloan’s conservation projects include Saint Thomas Episcopal Church, New York; H. H. Richardson’s Trinity Church in Boston; Harvard University’s Memorial Hall; Princeton University’s Chapel, and the State Houses of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Her conservation and research projects have won many awards, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Samuel Kress Foundation, the Graham Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, and the Arts & Crafts Fund.

    Tickets: $10 per person, available at The Shop at Trinity (206 Clarendon St.) or by phone 617.536.0944 x225. Questions: Kathy Acerbo-Bachmann, kacerbobachmann@trinitychurchboston.org.

  • Wednesday, March 23, 7:00 pm – Sustainable Preservation – The Power of Preservation/Reuse as a Green Strategy

    Buildings account for nearly 40% of all U.S. energy use and carbon emissions. With one of the country’s leading preservation architects as your guide, the lecture entitled Sustainable Preservation – The Power of Preservation/Reuse as a Green Strategy will explore the power of adaptive reuse to reduce those numbers and move us toward sustainability.

    The talk by Jean Carroon on Wednesday, March 23, beginning at 7 pm at Trinity Church in Copley Square, will demonstrate how an icon such as H.H. Richardson’s Trinity Church in Boston can go green—and why a 1970s strip-mall supermarket not only deserves similar attention but can also emerge as a building that delights users while it protects the environment. Sustainable Preservation makes a compelling argument that preservation and sustainability don’t just protect the environment, but deliver a full range of societal benefits, from job creation to stronger social connection.

    Jean Carroon, FAIA, LEED® AP, is a principal in Goody Clancy’s highly regarded preservation practice, based in Boston. She has earned national recognition for her expertise in applying sustainable-design technology to historic buildings, including more than a dozen National Historic Landmarks. She has directed the adaptive reuse and preservation of signature buildings in a broad range of sectors, including educational, civic and cultural projects for clients such as Harvard University and the National Park Service. She is currently working on the renovation of more than 50 historic structures on the St. Elizabeth’s West Campus in Washington, which will become the home of the Department of Homeland Security.

    Tickets: $15 ($10 BSA and Trinity Church Members and students), available at sustainablepreservation.eventbrite.com, The Shop at Trinity (206 Clarendon Street) or by phone 617.536.0944 x217. Questions: Kathy Acerbo-Bachmann, 617.536.0944 x217 or kacerbobachmann@trinitychurchboston.org. Co-sponsored by Trinity Church and the Boston Society of Architects, with a book signing to follow the lecture.  This event was rescheduled from an earlier January date due to snow.