A Richardson Romanesque Gem

What inspired the design of the Prendergast Library?

Jamestown and hundreds of other American cities were imprinted in the 1880s and 1890s with Henry Hobson Richardson's very refined and personalized Romanesque style. First Lutheran Church (see Sept. 9 post) and the Prendergast Library are the two best surviving examples of this style locally.

But most of these buildings were designed by Richardson admirers, not Richardson himself, who died at age 47 in 1886. Andrew Jackson Warner, the Rochester architect who designed the library that now houses the James Prendergast Library was an admirer and colleague who served as Richardson's supervising architect at the massive Buffalo State Hospital project (now the Richardson Olmsted Complex).

In his Prendergast Library (1891), Warner was drawing inspiration from Richardson's Thomas Crane Library in Quincy, MA. Built in 1881, the Crane was Richardson's most famous library project and its massing, materials, and round Romaneque arches (top image) are clearly echoed in Warner's Jamestown work (bottom image).

Published on by Peter Lombardi.