(1763–1844). American architect Charles Bulfinch was active during the late 18th and early 19th century. He gained fame chiefly as a designer of government buildings.
Bulfinch was born on August 8, 1763, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (in present-day Massachusetts). He studied at Harvard University in Massachusetts from 1778 to 1781. For two years beginning in 1785 Bulfinch toured Europe. On the advice of Thomas Jefferson, whom he met in Paris, France, Bulfinch visited many of the major architectural works of France and Italy. In London, England, he became acquainted with the Neoclassicism of the Scottish-born architect Robert Adam, and he was largely responsible for introducing the Adam style into the United States. Most of Bulfinch’s works incorporate Classical orders and show a mastery of proportion.
Among Bulfinch’s works are the Massachusetts State House in Boston (designed 1787–88; built 1795–98; still existing in the late 20th century but greatly altered); the Connecticut State House in Hartford (1792–96; now the city hall); and the Maine Capitol in Augusta (1828–31). Bulfinch was the fourth in the succession of architects of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., which he worked on from 1817 to 1830. He used the plans of his immediate predecessor, Benjamin Latrobe, for the wings, but he prepared a new design for the rotunda.
In 1787 Bulfinch helped to promote the first circumnavigation of the Earth by an American ship (the Columbia, commanded by Robert Gray). As a member (1791–95, 1799–1817) of the Boston board of selectmen, he directed the improvement of the local street system and of Boston Common and its surroundings. Bulfinch died on April 4, 1844, in Boston, Massachusetts.
