Fenway Studios
- Architect
- Parker, Thomas & Rice
- City
- Boston, MA
Fenway Studios at 30 Ipswich Street was built in 1905 after a 1904 fire destroyed Harcourt Studios and left many Boston artists without homes or workspace. Civic and business leaders quickly bought the land and hired the architects Parker and Thomas, who designed 46 studios lit entirely by north light, with 12-foot windows, 16-foot ceilings, and fireplaces in the end units.
the building
Built for artists. Parker and Thomas designed every studio around north light - the steady, shadowless light painters prize - giving each unit 12-foot windows and 16-foot ceilings, with fireplaces added in the end studios. The exterior is faced in clinker brick in the Arts and Crafts style.
the style
Arts and Crafts, expressed on the exterior through rough, irregularly fired clinker brick - a hand-worked material suited to a building made for working artists.
significance
Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1998 as the only studio building in the country designed with direct input from the artists who would work there and still used for that purpose. Painters and teachers including Edmund Charles Tarbell, William Paxton, Philip Hale, and Lilian Westcott Hale worked here.
nearby
- Massachusetts Historical Society
- Ayer Mansion (interior)
- New Riding Club
- Oliver Ames Mansion
- Fenway Park
- Four Seasons Hotel & Private Residences, One Dalton Street