Alexander Parris

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Alexander Parris
Virginia Executive Mansion
Quincy Market

Alexander Parris (November 24, 1780 – June 16, 1852) was a prominent

lighthouses along the coastal Northeastern United States
.

Early life and work

Parris was born in

Great Fire of 1866, but early photographs and Parris' surviving drawings bespeak works of neoclassical
artistry and taste.

The Executive Mansion at Richmond, Virginia, c. 1905

The boom would end, however, with

Plattsburgh, New York
as a Captain of the Artificers (engineers), gaining knowledge of military requirements for engineering.

Boston and federal patronage

In 1815, he moved to Boston, where he found a position in the office of Charles Bulfinch. Like his famous employer, Parris produced refined residences, churches and commercial buildings. When in 1817 Bulfinch was called to

Court Street.[1] He belonged to the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association.[2]

Quincy Market in 1830, Boston, Massachusetts

In 1824, however, he began a twenty-year association working for the

U.S. Treasury Department
. They are often of a tapered form termed "windswept."

Parris balanced the delicacy of his "superb draftsmanship", as it was called, with the coarseness of his building material of choice: granite. His most famous building, Quincy Market, is made of it. Parris died in Pembroke, where he is interred in the Briggs Burying Ground.

Designs

United First Parish Church, 1828, Quincy, Massachusetts -- exterior
-- and interior
  • Wickham House, 1812, Richmond, Virginia
    Wickham House, 1812, Richmond, Virginia
  • Somerset Club, 1819, Boston, Massachusetts
    Somerset Club, 1819, Boston, Massachusetts
  • Pilgrim Hall, 1824, Plymouth, Massachusetts
    Pilgrim Hall, 1824, Plymouth, Massachusetts
  • Execution Rocks Light, 1849, Long Island Sound
    Execution Rocks Light
    , 1849, Long Island Sound
  • The Bulfinch Building: State of the Art from the Start.
    The Bulfinch Building: State of the Art from the Start.

References

  1. ^ Boston Directory. 1818, 1823
  2. ^ Joseph Jenkins. An address delivered before the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanick Association, December 17, 1818, being the anniversary of the choice of officers, and fourth triennial celebration of their public festival. (Boston: Munroe & Francis, 1819)
  • Richard M. Candee, "Maine Towns, Maine People -- Architecture and the Community, 1783-1820", a chapter in Maine in the Early Republic; Maine Historical Society & Maine Humanities Council; University Press of New England, Hanover & London 1988
  • Arthur Gerrier, "Alexander Parris' Portland Years, 1801-1809", Landmarks Observer (Greater Portland Landmarks, Inc.), VIII, November–December 1981, pp. 10–11
  • Edward F. Zimmer, Pamela J. Scott, "Alexander Parris, B. Henry Latrobe and the John Wickham House in Richmond, Virginia", The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 41, No. 3 (October, 1982), pp. 202–211
  • The Bulfinch Building: State of the Art from the Start, R. Tomsho, Massachusetts General Hospital Magazine, 2011

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alexander Parris.
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