Benjamin Henry Latrobe

Benjamin Henry Boneval Latrobe (May 1, 1764–September 3, 1820), a British-born architect, engineer, and artist, brought a new level of sophistication and expertise to the practice and profession of architecture in the United States. In addition to iconic buildings such as the United States Capitol and the White House, Latrobe made significant contributions to American civil engineering and city planning projects. Fig. 2, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Horsdumonde, the House of Colonel Henry Skipwith, Cumberland County, Virginia , June 14, 1796. Back to texts The son of a well-connected minister in London whose circle of intellectual friends included Samuel Johnson, Benjamin Henry Latrobe [Fig. 1] was exposed at an early age to a wide range of subjects that would remain lifelong interests: art, architecture, engineering, and natural history—particularly botany, geology, and entomology. From 1776 to 1783 he was educated in Germany in the liberal arts curriculum of the Moravian church.[[1]]( Returning to England, he pursued civil engineering projects—principally harbors, canals , and other hydraulic projects—working in the office of John Smeaton (1724–1792) from about 1786. He began work as an architect in the office of the neoclassicist Samuel Pepys Cockerell (1754–1827) in 1789, and began practicing independently from about 1792.[[2]]( Visits to Paris, Rome, and Naples encouraged Latrobe’s admiration for the architecture of classical antiquity, which he also had learned about through published engravings represented in his extensive library of more than 1,500 books.[[3]]( Latrobe claimed a “very intimate” friendship with Humphry Repton and his son in the early 1790s, when the landscape architect was engaged “in beautifying & laying out parks ,” according to a letter from Latrobe to James Madison.[[4]]( Latrobe left England for America in 1795, occupying himself on the sea voyage by recording his observations of natural phenomena in detailed journal entries and watercolors. He maintained the habit during his residence in Virginia from 1796 to 1798, when he frequently explored the countryside on horseback while traveling to far-flung estates, such as the aptly named Horsdumonde (“Out of this World”) [Fig. 2]. His journals and watercolors document a wealth of topographical, scientific, and landscape subjects, as well as piquant insights into local society, manners, and politics.[[5]]( These observations would ultimately inform his “rational” approach to architecture, which he tailored to the distinctive manners and climate he found in America.[[6]]( Few of his conservative Virginia clients were willing to adopt Latrobe’s innovative designs, prompting him to observe of his Virginia years, “My fancy was kept employed in building castles in the air.”[[7]]( Faring marginally better as an engineer, Latrobe undertook a number of projects for improving canals and rivers.[[8]]( On an overnight stay at Mount Vernon in 1796, he spent several hours in discussion with George Washington, whom he greatly admired. He was particularly impressed with the President’s “very minute account” of the rivers of Virginia, “their natural advantages, and what he conceived might be done for their improvement by Art.”[[9]]( He also took note of Washington’s “uncommonly majestic and commanding” appearance, and expressed disappointment at the understated house and old-fashioned grounds that seemed unworthy of such a great man.[[10]]( Latrobe nevertheless documented the house and grounds in a number of carefully observed watercolors [Fig. 3]. Underemployed in Virginia, Latrobe wrote and illustrated a two-volume “Essay on Landscape” (1798–1799), technically in order to teach the art of watercolor to his friend Susan Catherine Spotswood (1774–1853), great-granddaughter of Virginia governor Alexander Spotswood, but more importantly to expound on British theories of the picturesque and their potential adaptation to America’s distinctive topography.[[11]]( Latrobe recom