Biographical Note
Benjamin Henry Latrobe and his students were responsible for establishing professional standards in the field of architecture in the United States. The majority of his extant architectural and engineering drawings are represented in the Latrobe architectural drawing archive (Library of Congress), consisting of designs spanning his career in the United States until his departure from Washington, D.C., two years before he died.
Born in England in 1764, Latrobe studied engineering with John Smeaton and architecture with Samuel Pepys Cockerell. He arrived in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1796 to take possession of an inherited parcel of land in Pennsylvania. The following year he engaged his first major architectural work in this country, the Virginia State Penitentiary. By 1803, Latrobe's reputation was so well established that he was asked by President Jefferson to work on the U.S. Capitol in the position of Surveyor of the Public Buildings. The next year he began work on the design for the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (cathedral in Baltimore), which was considered by many to be his masterpiece. Concurrent to these undertakings, Latrobe worked on a major engineering project, the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, before leaving in 1806. Because the War of 1812 interrupted the Capitol and cathedral building campaigns, Latrobe moved to Pittsburgh and became involved in steamboat-building with Robert Fulton. In 1815, he returned to Washington, D.C. to rebuild the war-damaged U.S. Capitol as Surveyor of the Capitol. He left his Capitol post in 1817, first to continue work in Baltimore, then to go to New Orleans in 1818, where his son had been overseeing his waterworks project and had died of yellow fever the previous year. Latrobe found further commissions in New Orleans, but died of yellow fever in 1820.