User:JPRiley/Rinn

John Phillip Rinn
Born	August 21, 1837 Germany
Died	March 17, 1905 Boston, Massachusetts
Nationality	United States
Occupation	Architect
Buildings	Barnum Hall, Tufts University; Bennington Battle Monument; Goddard Chapel, Tufts University

J. Phillip Rinn (1837-1905) was an American architect practicing in Boston, Massachusetts. He is best known as the architect of the Bennington Battle Monument in Bennington, Vermont, dedicated in 1891, as well as a number of buildings for Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

Life and career

Rinn was born Johanan Phillip Rinn in Germany, August 11, 1837 to John Henry and Louisa C. P. (Willig) Rinn. His father, a cabinetmaker, was a native of Giessen. The family came to the United States in 1853, settling in Cambridge by 1858. Rinn was educated in Germany and in Cambridge, and at some point anglicized his name to John.

He established himself in business as a cabinetmaker and decorator in Boston in 1865, in the firm of Rinn & Company. He continued in this line of work until 1874, when he declared bankruptcy. From this point forward, he practiced chiefly as an architect. Though he completed projects of many types, he was best known as an architect of monuments, most prominent of which is the Bennington Battle Monument in Vermont. At the time of his death he was developing a proposal for a monument to the Pilgrims at Provincetown, this was eventually realized as the Pilgrim Monument by a different architect.

Rinn died in Boston, March 17, 1905.

Personal life

Rinn joined the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1882, and the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association in 1892. He was also a founding member of the Paint and Clay Club, established 1879.

At the time of his death, Rinn had been an invalid for several years. The cause of death was pneumonia.

Reception

Rinn's architecture was generall well received by critics. In 1885, when his design for the Bennington Battle Monument was first approved, some hoped that it would present a change in the design of American monuments. One anonymous writer in the American Architect and Building News wrote that:

"In other respects ... the monument will be comparatively plain, some bas-reliefs apparently forming a surface decoration near the base; but if the idea of making work a study in pure lines is carried out, the less it is disturbed by rich accessories the better. We shall hope to see later in the completed structure what Mr. Rinn is capable of; but we can at least commend his choice of a which, though difficult, presents an opportunity for the display of the highest artistic gifts; and we hope we shall not only encourage him, but engage for him the utmost consideration on part of his committee, by saying that the powers of greatest artist might be fully employed for a lifetime in perfecting the entasis and modelling of such a shaft; and dull as our modern eyes are to intellectual beauty, we believe that every hour of a lifetime so spent would, even among us, meet with its reward in public appreciation."

In 1890, Rinn recieved second price in a design competition for his proposal for Grant's Tomb in New York. Ultimately, all of the designs were rejected. Rinn's design appears as a stylized, 518-foot tall version of that for Bennington. It differed in its rectangular base and that it was to be crowned with five atatues of angels, in addition to other details.

In his later career, Rinn was inspired by the contemporary work of Louis H. Sullivan in several of his designs. One of these, a townhouse in Boston, was reviewed in the Architectural Review as follows: "The house itself is dignified and self-controlled, the windows being well placed and excellently proportioned. Apart from the plain Greek balustrade, all the ornament is concentrated on the main entrance, a most singular piece of design."

Legacy

The architect G. Walter Capen was a member of his office from 1877 to 1880.