Eager to develop a style of architecture that would reflect what he saw as the musculature of the fast-growing United States, the late-19th-century architect Henry Hobson Richardson developed what would be called the Richardsonian Romanesque style.
 The Richardsonian Romanesque style took elements of European Romanesque architecture from buildings constructed in the 11th and 12th centuries, and adapted them to American idioms.

For example, the heavy, rough-cut facing stones of Romanesque architecture were no longer necessary for engineering reasons.
 Architects and builders had discovered more efficient ways for walls to distribute and bear a building's weight.
 Richardson believed that what was no longer necessary for function could be made to serve a new purpose of form, by creating a new visual language of individual separation and privacy.

The Glessner residence was Richardson's last work.
He died at 48, just 3 weeks after completion.
Eager to develop a style of architecture that would reflect what he saw as the musculature of the fast-growing United States, the late-19th-century architect Henry Hobson Richardson developed what would be called the Richardsonian Romanesque style.  The Richardsonian Romanesque style took elements of European Romanesque architecture from buildings constructed in the 11th and 12th centuries, and adapted them to American idioms.
For example, the heavy, rough-cut facing stones of Romanesque architecture were no longer necessary for engineering reasons.  Architects and builders had discovered more efficient ways for walls to distribute and bear a building's weight.  Richardson believed that what was no longer necessary for function could be made to serve a new purpose of form, by creating a new visual language of individual separation and privacy.
The Glessner residence was Richardson's last work. He died at 48, just 3 weeks after completion.
John J. Glessner House