Book Description
On the afternoon of 6 June 1889, a fire in a cabinet shop in downtown Seattle spread to destroy more than thirty downtown blocks covering 116 acres. Disaster soon became opportunity as Seattleís citizens turned their full energies to rebuilding: widening and regrading streets, laying new water pipes and sewer lines, promulgating a new building ordinance requiring construction in the commercial core, and creating a new professional fire department. A remarkable number of buildings, most located in Seattleís present-day Pioneer Square Historic District, were permitted within a few months and constructed within a few years of the Great Seattle Fire. As a result, the post-fire rebuilding of Seattle offers an extraordinarily focused case study of late-nineteenth-century American urban architecture. Seattleís architects seeking design solutions that would meet the new requirements most often found them in the Romanesque Revival mode of the countryís most famous architect, Henry Hobson Richardson. In contrast to Victorian Gothic, Second Empire, and other mid-nineteenth-century architectural styles, Richardsonís Romanesque Revival vocabulary of relatively unadorned stone and brick with round-arched openings conveyed strength and stability without elaborate decorative treatment. For Seattleís fire-conscious architects it offered a clear architectural system that could be applied to a variety of building types -- including office blocks, warehouses, and hotels -- and ensure a safer, progressive, and more visually coherent metropolitan center. Distant Corner examines the brief but powerful influence of H. H. Richardson on the building of Americaís cities, and his specific influence on the architects charged with rebuilding the post-fire city of Seattle. Chapters on the pre-fire city and its architecture, the technologies and tools available to designers and builders, and the rise of Richardson and his role in defining a new American architecture provide a context for examining the work of the cityís architects. Distant Corner describes the new post-fire commercial core and the emerging network of schools, firehouses, and other public institutions that helped define Seattleís neighborhoods. It closes with the sudden collapse of Seattleís economy in the Panic of 1893 and the ensuing depression that halted the cityís building boom, saw the closing of a number of architectsí offices, and forever ended the dominance of Romanesque Revival in American architecture. Distant Corner offers an analysis of both local and national influences that shaped the architecture of the city in the 1880s and 1890s. It has much to offer those interested in Seattleís early history, the building of the city, and the preservation of its architecture. Because this period of American architecture has received only limited study, it is also of importance for those interested in the influence of Boston-based H. H. Richardson and his contemporaries on American architecture at the end of the nineteenth century.

About the Author
Jeffrey Karl Ochsner is professor of architecture at the University of Washington; among his previous publications is H. H. Richardson: Complete Architectural Works. Dennis Alan Andersen, formerly in charge of photographs and architectural drawings in the Special Collections Division of the University of Washington Libraries, is a longtime historic preservation advocate and currently a Lutheran pastor. Both are authors in Shaping Seattle Architecture: A Historical

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"On the afternoon of 6 June 1889, a fire in a cabinet shop in downtown Seattle spread to destroy more than thirty downtown blocks covering 116 acres. Disaster soon became opportunity as Seattle's citizens turned their full energies to rebuilding: widening and regrading streets, laying new water pipes and sewer lines, promulgating a new building ordinance requiring masonry construction in the commercial core, and creating a new professional fire department. A remarkable number of buildings, most located in Seattle's present-day Pioneer Square Historic District, were permitted within a few months and constructed within a few years of the Great Seattle Fire. As a result, the post-fire rebuilding of Seattle offers an extraordinarily focused case study of late-nineteenth-century American urban architecture." "Distant Corner examines the brief but powerful influence of H. H. Richardson on the building of America's cities, and his specific influence on the architects charged with rebuilding the post-fire city of Seattle. Chapters on the pre-fire city and its architecture, the technologies and tools available to designers and builders, and the rise of Richardson and his role in defining a new American architecture provide a context for examining the work of the city's architects. Seattle's leading pre- and post-fire architects - William Boone, Elmer Fisher, John Parkinson, Charles Saunders and Edwin Houghton, Willis Ritchie, Emil DeNeuf, Warren Skillings, and Arthur Chamberlin - are profiled. Distant Corner describes the new post-fire commercial core and the emerging network of schools, fire houses, and other public institutions that helped define Seattle's neighborhoods. It closes with the sudden collapse of Seattle's economy in the Panic of 1893 and the ensuing depression that halted the city's building boom, saw the closing of a number of architects' offices, and forever ended the dominance of Romanesque Revival in American architecture." With more than 200 illustra

SYNOPSIS

Ochsner [architecture, U. of Washington] and historic preservation advocate Andersen focus on the late nineteenth century period when the influence of the leading American architect Richardson was at its height. Seattle's urban core was destroyed by fire in 1889, they explain, and the city was reshaped rapidly afterward with the newest buildings and infrastructure.￯﾿ﾽ The reconstruction ended abruptly due to the national economic collapse (the Panic of 1893), and when construction began again in the 20th century, Richardson's influence had passed. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal