Benjamin Henry Latrobe

Lore & Background

Latrobe was born into a Moravian family; his father was a leader of the Moravian Church, and his mother was born in Pennsylvania. He was educated at the Moravian School at Niesky in Silesia, traveled through Germany, served in the Royal Prussian Army, and possibly in the Austrian Imperial Army. After a Grand Tour of Europe, he returned to England, apprenticed with engineer John Smeaton, worked briefly with architect Samuel Pepys Cockerell, and established his own practice in 1791. He married Lydia Sellon in 1790; she died in childbirth in 1793. Facing bankruptcy after a failed canal project, he immigrated to America in 1796.

In the United States, Latrobe initially settled in Virginia, where he designed the Virginia State Penitentiary in Richmond, incorporating innovative penal reforms. He moved to Philadelphia in 1798 and established his practice. In 1803, he was hired as Surveyor of the Public Buildings of the United States and served as the second Architect of the Capitol, spending much of the next fourteen years on projects in Washington, D.C., including the White House porticos. He also designed the Baltimore Basilica and the Merchants' Exchange in Baltimore. Later in life, he worked on a waterworks project in New Orleans, where he died of yellow fever in 1820.

Reader's Guide

Benjamin Henry Latrobe is significant as one of the first formally trained professional architects in the United States, bringing European neoclassical influences to the young nation. His designs for the United States Capitol, the Baltimore Basilica (the first cathedral built in the United States for any Christian denomination), and the Merchants' Exchange in Baltimore (the largest American structure of its time) established a standard for public architecture. He also designed the White House porticos. His work on the Virginia State Penitentiary introduced penal reforms such as semicircular cell arrangements and solitary confinement. Latrobe's legacy extends through his sons: Benjamin Henry Latrobe II, who designed the Thomas Viaduct for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad; John Hazlehurst Boneval Latrobe, a civic leader and inventor; and grandsons who continued in architecture and engineering. He has been called the 'father of American architecture.'

Did You Know?

• Latrobe was the uncle of Charles La Trobe, the first lieutenant-governor of Victoria in Australia.
• He designed the largest structure in America at the time, the Merchants' Exchange in Baltimore, completed in 1820.
• Latrobe's mother, Anna Margaretta Antes, was born in the American colony of Pennsylvania.
• He was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1815.