Design Sketches for a Memorial Library (recto and verso) (possibly the Winn Memorial Library, Woburn, Massachusetts)

Henry Hobson Richardson

ca. 1876 · Graphite · Drawings and Prints

Sketches on both sides of this sheet may record Richardson's preliminary ideas for the Winn Memorial Library, Woburn, Massachusetts, built 1876–79. As one of America's most influential nineteenth-century architects, the designer developed a style known as Richardsonian Romanesque, demonstrated most famously in Trinity Church, Boston. Developed sketches on the recto of the present sheet use pointed Gothic arches, however, which the clients then rejected. As built, the library uses rounded arched windows and colonnades and remains true to Richardson's signature style.

Artist

Henry Hobson Richardson

Date

ca. 1876

Medium

Graphite

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Bequest of Herbert Mitchell, 2008