In 1872, six architects around the world received the following invitation postmarked Boston, Massachusetts. You are requested to furnish designs for the erection of a Church on a lot of land recently purchased by Trinity Church&. It is desired to seat on the floor 1000 persons, No columns, Well lighted, .The Building Committee will pay for your designs Three Hundred Dollars. 

All six submitted plans.

The Building Committee and the church's charismatic young rector, Phillips Brooks, chose a young southerner out of a small town in Louisiana. But Henry Hobson Richardson was no country bumpkin. The 29-year-old architect had graduated from Harvard and attended L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, before starting to practice in New York. The church commission changed his life, and he changed architecture.

Trinity Church is unique. The pale granite and red sandstone building ushered in a new, style of architecture. Richardsonian Romanesque --distinguished by its clay tile roof, colorful interior decoration, massive tower, and heavy, rounded arches was sensitive to the harmonious relationship between the exterior and the interior of a building. It was the first American architectural style to attain international notice.

The building in which parishioners worship and that visitors come to admire, however, is not exactly like the one proposed in the architect's winning entry. Originally, the tower was octagonal and higher. The finished church evolved with the architect and input from engineers. I really don't see why the Trinity people liked them [the original drawings], or, if they liked them, why they let me do what I afterwards did, Richardson said.

About 100,000 people a year now tour Richardson's landmark church, the centerpiece of Copley Square. Entering the building, some say, is like walking into a painting. An extraordinary team of diverse talent, all in their thirties and destined for fame, collaborated with interior designer John LaFarge to produce the more than 21,500 square feet of murals and stained glass windows that dress the interior in color and light. Daniel Chester French later sculpted the Lincoln Memorial; Augustus Saint-Gaudens is celebrated as the master of such relief sculptures as the Robert Gould Shaw Civil War Memorial on Boston Common; and Charles McKim went on to design the Boston Public Library across the street from the church.

The stained glass windows alone are worth a visit to Trinity. The collection, among the best in the country, includes examples from most of the famous American and European studios. In addition to painting murals, LaFarge also experimented with new forms and techniques in stained glass.

He took opalescent glass, which had long been used for mundane containers, and layered it. The result was revolutionary. By layering, he achieved colors and textures that had never been possible. (Louis Comfort Tiffany, a later competitor, adopted some of LaFarge's innovations.) Many experts consider LaFarge's church window of Christ in Majesty the finest work of stained glass in America. The extensive renovation recently completed includes the addition of two huge examples of modern stained glass art for the newly developed undercroft, basement.

While visitors appreciate the stained glass windows, colorful murals illustrating texts from the Old and New Testaments, the open interior with no columns to interrupt the flow of spaciousness, and the 372-foot square center tower, most are unaware that the church also represents an amazing feat of engineering. Built in the Back Bay on tidal wetlands filled with gravel, the building rests on 4,500 spruce piles, 35 feet long and 10 to 12 inches in diameter.

Architects have always appreciated the landmark building. In the 1880s, when they ranked the top ten buildings in the United States, Trinity Church made the list. One hundred years later, the American Institute of Architects repeated the exercise, and the only building included from the original list was Trinity Church. It is also the only Boston building and the only church in the United States on their list.

Richardson's exuberant architecture and decoration mirrored The Gilded Age. Today, we enjoy his lavish building mirrored nearby in the spare Hancock Tower, designed by I.M. Pei, a talented architect of our time. Trinity Church speaks anew to every age.