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The basilica, facing Cathedral
Street in Baltimore (John W. Waite Associates,
Architects)
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The Restoration of the Light
Baltimore's basilica, a neoclassical masterpiece designed by Benjamin Latrobe, gets an illuminating makeover.
BY EVE M. KAHN
An architect in early-19th-century America
couldn't turn his back on a construction site
for long?especially an architect who was bad
with money. Benjamin Henry Latrobe learned this galling
lesson while supervising work on the cathedral that
he designed for the Roman Catholics of Baltimore,
begun in 1806.
The builders at one point read Latrobe's plans
upside down. Piers and walls ended up too short; foundation
stones that wouldn't be visible were hand-hammered,
inexplicably and expensively. Unneeded marble was
delivered for the granite-walled shell. The central
dome, thanks to malformed underlying piers, turned
out eight inches too wide (it was eventually corrected).
Although Latrobe visited the site periodically, the
builders were incompetent, hostile, possibly drunk,
and corrupt. Boxfuls of Latrobe's emotional letters
to and from the Catholic bishop (and later archbishop),
John Carroll, survive. The architect tried to be polite?"I
beg you will not call me obstinate"?while
confiding exhaustedly to colleagues that he considered
the design "dead, and damned past redemption."
Latrobe threatened to quit, publish the correspondence
with Carroll and the Archdiocese of Baltimore trustees,
and have his name taken off the commission. As he
gradually went broke, he suffered crushing bouts of
anxiety, melancholy, and dysentery.
Carroll pleaded with him "not to abandon us in
the present state of our building." Latrobe?who
had offered his services pro bono?caved. "I
will return to the plough," he promised, then
weeks later disgustedly announced yet another "final
adieu" but returned again for still more professional
punishment. Before the trustees could raise enough
money to finish his schemes, Latrobe died of yellow
fever in New Orleans.
For more of this article, look for the
January/February 2007 issue on newsstands or e-mail
us to purchase a copy.
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