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James Renwick, Jr. (b. November 11, 1818, Bloomingdale, New York - d. June 23, 1895, New York City, United States), was a well-known American architect in the 19th-century. The Encyclopedia of American Architecture calls him "one of the most successful American architects of his time."
He was born into a wealthy and well-educated family. His mother, Margaret Brevoort, wealthy and socially prominent, was from a well-established New York family. His father, James Renwick, was an engineer and professor of natural philosophy at Columbia College, now Columbia University. His two brothers were also engineers.
Renwick was not trained as an architect. His ability and interest was nurtured through his cultivated background, which granted him early exposure to travel, and through a broad cultural education that included architectural history. He learned the skills from his father. He studied engineering at Columbia College (now Columbia University), entering at the age of twelve and graduating in 1836. He received an M.A. three years later. On graduating he took a position as structural engineer with the Erie Railroad and subsequently was a supervisor on the Croton Reservoir, acting as an assistant engineer on the Croton Aqueduct in New York City.
He received his first major commission, at the age of twenty-five, in 1843 when he won the competition to design Grace Church, an Episcopal church in New York City, which followed the English Gothic style. In 1846 Renwick won the competition for the design of the Smithsonian Institution Building in Washington, DC. Built between 1847 and 1855, the many-turreted building, generally referred to as ‘the Castle’, was in the Romanesque style, as requested by the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian, and was built of red sandstone quarried in Seneca, Maryland. It was a major factor in the Gothic revival in the United States.
In 1849, he designed the Free Academy Building (City College of New York), New York City, at Lexington Avenue and 23rd Street. It was likely the first Gothic Revival college building on the East Coast. *
Renwick went on to design what is considered his finest achievement, and his best-known building: St. Patrick's Cathedral, on the corner of New York City's Fifth Avenue and 51st street. He was chosen as architect for the cathedral in 1853, building started in 1858 and it opened in May of 1879. The cathedral is the most ambitious essay in Gothic that the revival of the style produced, and is a mixture of the German, French, and English Gothic influences.
Another building that Renwick designed housed the first Corcoran Gallery of Art (now home to the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery), in the Second Empire style, in Washington D.C. (1859-1871). Other commissions include the first major buildings on the campus of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York (1861-1865), including the Main Hall (1860), Saint Bartholomew's Church (1871-1872) in New York City, All Saints' Roman Catholic Church (1882-1893) in Harlem, which was designed in the Victorian Gothic style, the New York Public Library, many mansions for the wealthy of New York, banks, the Charity and Smallpox Hospitals on Roosevelt Island, the main building of the Children's Hospital on Randall's Island, the Inebriate and Lunatic Asylums on Ward's Island, and the former facade of the New York Stock Exchange. He was also supervising architect for the Commission of Charities and Correction.
Several of Renwick's proteges became influential architects in their own right, including Bertram Goodhue, who was a partner of Ralph Adams Cram and designed the Nebraska State Capitol building, and John Wellborn Root.
Major buildings designed
- Grace Church, New York (1843-1846)
- Calvary Church, New York (1846-1847)
- Smithsonian Institution Building, Washington, D.C. (1847-1855)
- Free Academy Building (City College of New York) (1849), Lexington Avenue and 23rd Street.
- St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York (1858-1879)
- Corcoran Gallery of Art (currently the Renwick Gallery), Washington, D.C. (1859-1871)
- Cathedral of Our Merciful Saviour, Faribault, Minnesota (1862 - 1869)
- Cathedral High School, New York (1869)
- Greymore Friars' Residence, New York City (1869)
- St. Barthomew's Church, New York (1871-1872)
- Second Presbyterian Church, Chicago, IL (1872-1874)
External links
Source
- Packard, Robert. (Ed.) (1995). The Encyclopedia of American Architecture (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
1818 births | 1895 deaths | American architects | Smithsonian Institution people
"James Renwick, Jr."