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By Ted Smalley Bowen and Deborah Snoonian, P.E.

Renovating a national historic landmark is a high-pressure job in the best of circumstances. Throw in an awkward site and tricky subsurface conditions, along with new program, code, and energy requirements, and it becomes a monumental technical challenge. Henry Hobson Richardson’s 1877 Trinity Church, which has anchored Boston’s Copley Square through decades of frenetic growth and reconfiguration, has itself been a hive of activity for the past four years. Boston-based architecture firm Goody Clancy, engineers Cosentini Associates of New York and LeMessurier Consultants of Cambridge, Massachusetts, along with construction firm Shawmut Design and Construction of Boston, drew on an innovative mix of system and construction technologies to complete a sweeping restoration and expansion of the iconic and beloved building. In doing so they grappled with many of the key logistical and technical challenges that confronted Richardson and his builders 125 years ago—including the unstable soil and water table of the Back Bay’s backfilled tidal flats; the tightly bounded, irregular urban plot; and scaffolding requirements intended to minimize the aesthetic impact of the renovation.

Trinity Church sits in the heart of Copley Square, very close to I.M. Pei’s 1975 John Hancock Tower (at right in photo, above right). A model of the church’s new undercroft (top left) shows the exposed granite piers and new widely spaced columns.

The $53 million project involved the restoration of the original buildings, consisting of the 13,500-square-foot church and adjoining 13,000-square-foot parish house, as well as expanding a shallow basement into a 13,000-square-foot undercroft, an underground meeting and activity space, complete with bookstore and kitchen facilities. The project team also brought the building up to current code, replaced its mechanical systems, and repaired damage to various portions of the exterior and foundation. The work’s significant art conservation component included the cleaning and refurbishing of 9,500 square feet of murals, along with decorative painting, and 10 of the church’s 33 stained-glass windows. Most of the project was completed last fall, though restoration of the stained-glass windows will continue until 2008.

A rich history to be preserved

Built between 1872 and 1877, Trinity Church cemented Richardson’s reputation and sparked widespread imitation of his Romanesque-influenced style. The church, a Greek cross in plan, is constructed of granite with brownstone trim, as is the adjoining parish house. The structure rests on a foundation comprising a forest of some 4,500 wood piles, as well as four massive granite piers located underneath the corners of the church’s main tower. The artist John La Farge completed the murals and decorative painting. He also crafted the stained-glass windows, with the help of Eugene Oudinot, Henry Holiday, and others.

The church has been altered slightly over the years by a number of different designers. In the 1890s, the west porch was added and towers finished by Richardson’s successor firm Shepley Rutan & Coolidge. The present chancel dates from the 1930s; in the 1950s, the interior of the nave was restored and the vestibule modified. The interior of the parish house has been remodeled numerous times.

Goody Clancy’s restoration followed the Secretary of the Interior’s standards for rehabilitating historic buildings, according to principal Joan Goody, FAIA. Normally applied in projects vying for preservation tax credits (not a factor for the tax-exempt church), the standards stipulate that a building’s historic character be maintained, original features and significant historic changes be preserved, and new construction and exterior changes be distinct from existing features and reversible. “We touch anything designed by Richardson only where we have to—and with the lightest touch,” Goody says.