Special Event: The Architectural Drawings of H. H. Richardson

​Mark your calendars for Sunday, April 6, 2-4 pm and head to Oakes Ames Hall for a special presentation coordinated by Oakes Ames Memorial Hall, the Easton Historical Society, and the Ames family.
Here in Easton, we are very proud of our Richardson buildings. The North Easton collection of five HHR buildings is the largest and most important ensemble of his work anywhere in the US and the world. The buildings are Oakes Ames Memorial Hall, Old Colony Railroad Station, Ames Gate Lodge, Ames Free Library, and the F.L. Ames Gardener’s Cottage.

The book contains 450 full-color reproductions of largely unpublished sketches and renderings by the architect and his design assistants, including Charles McKim and Stanford White. Martin Filler, writing in the New York Review of Books, called this “An instructive, handsomely produced volume. Aided by a wide range of beautifully reproduced renderings, from Richardson’s lightning-bolt conceptual sketches to seductive presentation drawings by his talented assistants, we are led, project by project and step by step, through the prolific master’s output.”
 
Along with the Richardson buildings in North Easton, the book encompasses more than 50 other projects, including such masterpieces as Boston’s Trinity Church; Sever and Austin Halls at Harvard; the Allegheny County Courthouse and Jail in Pittsburgh; and the Marshall Field Store and Glessner House in Chicago. An essay by James F. O’Gorman, the leading scholar of Richardson, surveys his life and career; essays by the authors discuss the organization of Richardson’s studio, his development of a wide client network, and the history of the Harvard archive.

They are one of the many things that make Easton special. So, mark your calendars for Sunday, April 6, 2-4 pm and head to Oakes Ames Hall for a special presentation coordinated by Oakes Ames Memorial Hall, the Easton Historical Society, and the Ames family, introducing a new book that shows in never-before-seen detail how these buildings were designed. Henry Hobson Richardson: Drawings from the Collection of Houghton Library, Harvard University, by Jay Wickersham, Chris Milford, and Hope Mayo, is the first in-depth publication from the Harvard collection of over 4,000 drawings, made by Richardson and his studio.
Authors Jay Wickersham and Chris Milford have been involved in researching and preserving North Easton’s architecture for over fifteen years, including the successful efforts to save and redevelop the Ames Shovel Works. With co-author Hope Mayo, they will be making a presentation at the Oakes Ames Memorial Hall on Sunday, April 6, 2:00 to 4:00. A new glimpse into the architectural genius of H.H. Richardson

Anne Wooster Drury