Richard Upjohn

Richard Upjohn
Name	Richard Upjohn
Birth date	22 January 1802
Birth place	Stepney
Death date	16 August 1878
Death place	Glen Cove, New York
Nationality	English → American
Occupation	Architect
Notable works	Trinity Church (New York City), Kingscote (Rhode Island), St. John's Chapel (New York City)

Richard Upjohn was an English-born architect who became a leading figure in 19th-century American architecture and a principal proponent of the Gothic Revival in the United States. He is best known for high-profile ecclesiastical commissions, influential pattern books, and for helping to professionalize architectural practice through institutional leadership. Upjohn's buildings and writings shaped parish architecture across New England, the Mid-Atlantic States, and beyond, influencing architects, patrons, and ecclesiastical bodies.

Early life and education

Richard Upjohn was born in Stepney, near London, and apprenticed in the trade of carpentry and cabinetmaking in the early 19th century. He emigrated to the United States in 1829, settling in Boston before moving to New York City. In Boston and New York he worked as a builder and contractor for prominent clients in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, collaborating with established practitioners involved with projects for Episcopal parishes and civic patrons in port cities such as Newport, Rhode Island and Providence, Rhode Island.

Architectural career and major works

Upjohn's first widely recognized commission was Kingscote (1839), a villa for the merchant Nicholas Brown that displayed early Gothic motifs and picturesque massing. His national reputation solidified with the commission for Trinity Church (New York City), completed in 1846, a project commissioned by the vestry of Trinity Church in lower Manhattan and patronized by leading financiers connected to Wall Street and families such as the Morrises. Trinity Church combined medieval Gothic verticality with polychrome masonry, drawing attention from clergy and civic leaders in New England and the Mid-Atlantic States.

Upjohn designed numerous parish churches, including St. John's Chapel (New York City), and rural and suburban commissions ranging from St. Luke's-type chapels to larger urban houses of worship in Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. He executed institutional and domestic work such as rectories, school buildings, and villas for merchant families tied to transatlantic trade networks between Liverpool and Boston. Upjohn maintained a successful practice in New York City and later formed the firm Upjohn & Son with his son Richard M. Upjohn, which produced landmark projects and expanded the firm's reach into Connecticut, Vermont, and New Jersey.

Gothic Revival and design philosophy

Upjohn championed the Gothic Revival as an appropriate style for Episcopal worship and for the moral and aesthetic aims promoted by clergy such as Richard Hooker-influenced parish leaders and contemporary advocates like John Henry Newman-aligned Anglo-Catholic sympathizers. He argued that medieval precedents—seen in the work of E. S. Prior and the writings of Augustus Pugin—provided both liturgical logic and picturesque charm. Upjohn's approach emphasized honest expression of structure, pointed arches, steeply pitched roofs, buttresses, and stained-glass fittings by artisans often connected to workshops influenced by William Morris and the Gothic Revival in England.

His pattern book, published as a manual for parish builders, disseminated designs that bridged ecclesiastical theory and practical construction methods used by builders in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the Hudson Valley. By prescribing proportions, ornamentation, and materials, Upjohn's publications enabled parishes in small towns and growing cities—communities shaped by land grants, railroad expansion, and commercial growth—to erect churches that aligned with national liturgical trends advocated by bishops and diocesan committees.

Professional organizations and influence

Upjohn was a founding figure in the establishment of professional architecture associations in the United States. He helped found the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1857 and served as its first president, positioning the AIA as a nexus for exchange among practitioners from Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco. Through lectures, magazine contributions, and participation in exhibitions organized by bodies such as the National Academy of Design and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he influenced architects including James Renwick Jr., Calvert Vaux, Alexander Jackson Davis, and his son Richard M. Upjohn.

Upjohn's advocacy for professional standards intersected with civic and ecclesiastical institutions, engaging figures in diocesan boards and municipal authorities in cities like New Haven and Albany. His correspondence and published designs circulated among patrons connected to banking houses and shipping firms, reinforcing stylistic networks across the Atlantic with contacts in London and Liverpool.

Personal life and legacy

Upjohn married and raised a family that included his son Richard M. Upjohn, who continued the practice and preserved his father's designs through the firm Upjohn & Son. Upjohn's death in Glen Cove, New York in 1878 marked the end of a career that left an enduring architectural footprint: landmark churches, suburban villas, and pattern-book models that shaped parish architecture in towns such as Newport, Tarrytown, and Skaneateles. His buildings have been studied by preservationists, cited in inventories maintained by state historic preservation offices in Massachusetts and New York, and remain central to discussions in architectural history curricula at institutions like Columbia University and Yale University.

Upjohn's influence persists in the continued use and conservation of his churches, the professional structures of the American Institute of Architects, and in scholarly work by historians of the Gothic Revival and 19th-century American architecture. Category:19th-century architects