{"id":5708,"date":"2013-09-18T06:46:36","date_gmt":"2013-09-18T10:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/?p=5708"},"modified":"2013-09-18T11:26:41","modified_gmt":"2013-09-18T15:26:41","slug":"benjamin-henry-latrobes-first-great-structure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2013\/09\/benjamin-henry-latrobes-first-great-structure\/","title":{"rendered":"Benjamin Henry Latrobe’s “First Great Structure”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“Center Square Water Works,” Section.(PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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“Centre Square. Erected in 1800. Taken Down in 1828,” Copy of original by John James Barralet. (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Benjamin Henry Latrobe had abundant talent and even more ambition<\/a>. He left his native England for America after realizing that there were those \u201cwhose talents are superior to mine\u2026 I should perhaps never have elbowed through them.\u201d But in America, Latrobe could claim: \u201cI am the only successful Architect and Engineer.\u201d Here he could find opportunities to demonstrate his skills and shape the future of a new nation, as well as his profession.<\/p>\n

And so he did, first in Philadelphia in 1798, then in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, New Orleans and beyond. By the time Latrobe<\/a> died of Yellow Fever in 1820, he left a trail of buildings the likes of which had not been seen or imagined on this side of the Atlantic. He showed what the profession of architecture could do, if given half a chance.<\/p>\n

None of it was easy. \u201cI have had to break the ice for my successors, and \u2026 destroy the prejudices \u2026 [of] \u00a0villainous [sic] Quacks in whose hands the public works have hitherto been…\u201d The American custom of hiring builders for design and<\/em> construction frustrated Latrobe, and made his every step difficult, but within a few years after his arrival, a few standing examples demonstrated his genius. In Philadelphia, Latrobe completed two buildings that would turn heads and change minds.<\/p>\n

One was the Pump House at Center Square. Inspired, in part, by the Roman Pantheon, Latrobe adapted the oculus at the dome’s center not for light, but to emit smoke generated by the new engineering feat inside\u2014a steam engine. This stoking, smoking, white-marble Pump House sat smack in the center of Philadelphia\u2019s city plan as a dual symbol: a bold reflection of young America inheriting the past greatness of ancient civilization and<\/em> a temple to dawn of the industrial age at the start of a new century.<\/p>\n

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Detail, demolition of “Pennsylvania Bank, 1867” with the Merchants’ Exchange cupola in the distance.\u00a0 Albumen print by John Moran, photographer. (The Library Company of Philadelphia)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Latrobe\u2019s second early triumph, his <\/span>Bank of Pennsylvania<\/a>, quickly became \u201cone of the most influential buildings in the nation\u2019s history.\u201d Critic Paul Goldberger waxes in a <\/span>PBS documentary<\/a>, calling it \u201ca wonder.” Architectural historians from <\/span>Talbot Hamlin<\/a> (\u201can epoch-making work\u201d) to Jeffrey Cohen, (\u201ca game changer\u201d) agree.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ionic Capital from the Erectheum, Athens. From Antiquities of Athens, Stuart and Revett, 1762 (Google Books)
<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Where Latrobe\u2019s bank looked<\/em> like a Greek Temple, the Ionic temple on the Ilyssus<\/a> near Athens, and was<\/em> the first building to use archeologically-correct details (published decades before in Stuart and Revett\u2019s landmark book, Antiquities of Athens<\/a><\/em>) the Bank of Pennsylvania was, as Hamlin pointed out \u201cin no sense a copy of any ancient building.\u201d \u00a0Here Latrobe developed a plan \u201csimply and functionally from the necessities of the building, with a new kind of simplicity and openness. Like the Pump House, “it was a creation and not a copy.\u201d And with its vaulted interior, \u201cnothing this technically ambitious had ever been built in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a brief moment, Latrobe made it sound easy. \u201cIt was a plaything to me,\u201d he reflected, adding, \u201cso in fact, are all my designs.\u201d They \u201ccome of themselves unmasked and in multitudes\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

President Thomas Jefferson, a fan of ancient architecture who owned and treasured his copy of Stuart and Revett, took notice of Latrobe\u2019s display in Philadelphia and brought him to the nation\u2019s Capital<\/a>. As Goldberger describes it, Jefferson needed Latrobe to \u201cfix [William] Thornton\u2019s mess\u201d at the Capitol, then under construction.<\/p>\n

Problem was, Washington needed an architect who was also a politician, which Latrobe decidedly was not. Years later, he commented about his work there: \u201cI have run my race in a sack, and if I have got to the goal, it has only need by tumbling on & over all obstacles & persevering to the end.\u201d But in Philadelphia, at the Bank of Pennsylvania, Latrobe had been given carte blanche<\/em>.\u201d That<\/em> building Latrobe considered his masterpiece, or as he more immodestly put it: \u201cmy first great structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nothing important by Latrobe survives in Philadelphia. The Pump House lasted only until 1828. His Bank of Pennsylvania was pulled down in 1867<\/a>. But Latrobe\u2019s influence and impact lived on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Related posts at PhillyHistory: Philadelphia as Athens- of America: More Than Skin Deep<\/a> and Salvaging Parts of the Greek Revival.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Benjamin Henry Latrobe had abundant talent and even more ambition. He left his native England for America after realizing that there were those \u201cwhose talents are superior to mine\u2026 I should perhaps never have elbowed through them.\u201d But in America, Latrobe could claim: \u201cI am the only successful Architect and Engineer.\u201d Here he could find […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}