Benjamin Henry Latrobe

Benjamin Henry Latrobe Boneval (* May 1, 1764 at Fulneck, West Yorkshire, England; † September 3, 1820 in New Orleans, Louisiana ) was an American architect. He is known for the construction of the United States Capitol.

Biography

Benjamin Latrobe was born in England in the Moravian Church settlement Fulneck. At the age of seven he was sent to the Moravian School, the school of the Moravian Church in Niesky in Saxony. After a continental Grand Tour, he returned in 1784 to England and received an apprenticeship with John Smeaton, the engineer of the Eddystone lighthouse, and later the famous architect Charles Robert Cockerell.

In the early 1790s he founded a private architectural firm, and hammer Woodpark (link below) near East Grinstead in Sussex in 1792 was his first independent work. 1793 was built near the Ashdown House. Both houses are still standing. In 1795 he emigrated to America, where his son should gain great fame as the first professional architect, who worked in the States.

As an engineer, he was responsible for the water supply of Philadelphia and, along with his son Henry Sellon Boneval Latrobe, New Orleans, where he died of yellow fever.

Latrobe was so influential that public architecture in the United States Revival was executed almost always in Greek. He complained for fun, that after he had built the waterworks and the Bank of Pennsylvania, the city copied him and continued his influence on public architecture.

1814 Latrobe graduated with Robert Fulton steamboat together for a project in Pittsburgh.

Works (selection)

• The Capitol, Washington, D.C.
• America's first Catholic cathedral, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore, consecrated in 1821
• The Pope House in Lexington (Kentucky)
• Adena in Chillicothe
• St. John's Church and the Decatur House in Washington
• The columns lobbies the White House