BENJAMIN HENRY LATROBE
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Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764-1820) was born near Leeds in Yorkshire, England. He was strongly influenced by his Moravian upbringing
and was educated in the most liberal and progressive European circles. He traveled extensively through England, France, and Germany, and was most comfortable with sophisticated intellectual audiences such as artists, writers, and theologians. He studied engineering under John Smeaton and architecture under Samuel Pepys Cockerell at a time when the two disciplines were rapidly achieving professional status. He designed a few domestic structures in England early in his career, but after the death of his first wife, followed by some financial difficulties and the failing economy, Latrobe set his sights on America.

He emigrated in 1795-96, arriving in Norfolk, Virginia, and eventually settled in Richmond. Latrobe found that while the philosophical and political context of
the new republic suited him perfectly, the architectural situation was parochial.
In Virginia, he designed several houses and, his most important early commission, the Virginia State Penitentiary. In 1798, he moved to the more cosmopolitan locale of Philadelphia, where he designed the city’s first water system and was appointed architect for the Bank of Philadelphia. The bank, though no longer standing, was one of Latrobe’s finest works and the nation’s first neoclassical building.

Latrobe and President Jefferson first collaborated when Jefferson sought his expertise to design a dry dock at the Washington Navy Yard. Although Congress never funded the elaborate project, the architectural talents of the young Latrobe did not go unnoticed. In 1803, Jefferson, who was himself well known in the architectural field, appointed Latrobe the country’s first Surveyor
of Public Buildings, and from that point a long mutual admiration developed.
As surveyor, Latrobe was responsible for the continuing design and oversight
of construction of all government buildings, including the White House and the U.S. Capitol. Like Jefferson, Latrobe saw this position as the opportunity to create an appropriate architectural signature for the young nation.

Benjamin Henry Latrobe became one of the nation’s most prolific architects. He salvaged William Thornton’s amateur beginnings at the U.S. Capitol and built its great interior spaces, including the monumental Hall of Representatives, based upon the Greco-Roman theater. He worked with Jefferson on a revision of the White House and later with Dolley Madison on the design and function
of the interior spaces. His Greek-cross, St. John’s Church near the White House, illustrates his preference for geometric purity and offers his solution to the ideal church program posited by Italian Renaissance designers. Latrobe’s Baltimore Exchange demonstrates his ability to conceive of completely new building types serving a capitalist economy. His Roman Catholic Cathedral
in Baltimore was a commission wrested from Godefroy, which possesses an integration of space, structure, function and exterior form that offers the most intact evidence of Latrobe’s mature style and is the work of an international designer of the first order. He is credited with introducing to America the
Gothic and Greek Revival styles of architecture, both of which would become widespread during the next half-century.

In addition to his public buildings, Latrobe’s uniquely American designs were also evident in his more than 60 residential projects Decatur House, Adena, located in Chilicothe, Ohio, and the Pope Villa, located in Lexington, Kentucky, are the only three of these residences standing today. Three of his residential structures in England also remain.

Latrobe became the first fully trained architect to practice and teach in the United States, earning him the distinction of the "father of American architecture." A combination of his European education, his talent and his
social graces made him one of the major figures of the New Republic.

Benjamin Henry Latrobe died in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1820.