I am pleased to have a chance to see and get to know H.H. Richardson’s Trinity Church, which dominates Copley Square opposite the Public Library, squat, but grandly ornate, an idiosyncratic composite of Romanesque design, as much German as French, with a magnificent interior space and much good stone carving. Richardson had been trained at the École des Beaux Arts, returned to the States in 1865, and designed a lunatic asylum in Buffalo before the commission to design Trinity Church:-
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
Most of Richardson’s lunatic asylum still stands in Buffalo (my home town). It was derelict for almost half a century (which made it especially spooky at night, seehttp://opacity.us/site35_buffalo_state_hospital.htm), although I understand it has been undergoing renovations for the last eight years and will become a hotel and conference center. https://richardson-olmsted.com/ Sweet dreams, I suppose.
For another Richardson building closer at hand, see Austin Hall at Harvard Law School, which I always thought the nicest of the HLS buildings. — Bruce
Dear Bruce, Thanks for the info. Will try and see Austin Hall tomorrow. Charles
If you visit Austin Hall, be sure to go inside and up to the second floor to see the room used for the moot court competition. I believe it was once the HLS library before Langdell Hall (the neoclassical building adjacent) opened.