Charles Brigham (June 21, 1841 – July 1925) was an American architect based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Life
Brigham was born, raised, and educated in Watertown, Massachusetts schools and graduated at age 15 in 1856 in the first class of Watertown High School. He had no formal education in architecture.
He apprenticed to Calvin Ryder and later to Boston architect Gridley J.F. Bryant. Brigham served as a sergeant in the Union Army during the American Civil War, then returned to working with Bryant. In 1866, Brigham and John Hubbard Sturgis formed a partnership which lasted 20 year. In that times the firm was recognized for its innovative and groundbreaking designs, including the original building for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Brigham subsequently designed the 1898 annex to the Massachusetts State House in Boston, the 1906 The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, and many residential buildings especially in the Boston Back Bay and Newport Rhode Island.
Brigham's work reflects the eclecticism and historicism prevalent in the last quarter of the 19th century, initiating fusion of the complex eclectic references of the English Queen Anne revival with American colonial design. The resulting coastal New England houses of the 1880s by Brigham and other Boston architects defined the shingle style in one of the most original and distinguished epochs of American architectural history, from which other notable architects, such as Henry Hobson Richardson, emerged. He also designed the Watertown town seal.
Work
With John Hubbard Sturgis
Codman Building, Boston, 1873
Church of the Advent, Boston, 1875–1888
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1876
86 Marlborough Street, Boston 1872
In solo practice
Trinity Episcopal Church (Melrose, Massachusetts), 1886
Hollis Hunnewell Cottage, Wellesley, Massachusetts, 1869
Stoughton (MBTA station), Stoughton, Massachusetts, 1888
Unitarian Building, First Parish of Watertown, Massachusetts, 1889
Fairhaven Town Hall, Fairhaven, Massachusetts, 1892
Millicent Library, Fairhaven, Massachusetts, 1893
Annex to the Massachusetts State House in Boston, 1895
New Bedford Institution for Savings, New Bedford, Massachusetts, 1897
Scollay Square and Adams Square station entrances, 1898
Albert C. Burrage House, Back Bay, Boston, 1899; designated as a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission in 2003 Albert C. Burrage House, 1205 West Crescent Avenue, Redlands, California, 1899/1900 Madison Public Library, now the Museum of Early Trades and Crafts, Madison, New Jersey, 1900 Unitarian Memorial Church, Fairhaven, Massachusetts, 1901 Fairhaven High School, Fairhaven, Massachusetts, 1905 Messiah Home for Children, The Bronx, New York City, 1905–19hool Old Watertown High School, Watertown, Massachusetts, 1913 St. Mark the Evangelist Church, Dorchester, Massachusetts St. Francis of Assisi Church, Braintree, Massachusetts
References
Watertown Tribune-Enterprise, Watertown, Mass., Friday, July 24, 1925
Burrage House Study Report
Further reading
Adams, Oscar Fay, "A NEW ENGLAND ARCHITECT AND HIS WORK", The New England Magazine, June 1907