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Tennis and Racquet Club

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1904, Parker, Thomas and Rice. 939 Boylston St.
  • (Keith Morgan)

If their Fenway Studios building (FL2; 1905), nearby at 30 Ipswich Street, evokes the functionalism of nineteenth-century New England's brick factories, at the Tennis and Racquet Club, Parker, Thomas and Rice quote from the Renaissance, borrowing the double-cube massing and low-hipped roof of McKim, Mead and White's Boston Public Library (BB42). Largely unfenestrated brick walls articulated in vertical panels of diaper work express the playing courts within (including one of the region's few court tennis courts), as unmistakably as the library's arcaded windows illuminate the Bates Hall reading room. In a nod to modernity, all trim above the limestone water table is glazed terra-cotta, then gaining favor as an architectural material.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Keith N. Morgan
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Citation

Keith N. Morgan, "Tennis and Racquet Club", [Boston, Massachusetts], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MA-01-BB82.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Massachusetts

Buildings of Massachusetts: Metropolitan Boston, Keith N. Morgan, with Richard M. Candee, Naomi Miller, Roger G. Reed, and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009, 178-179.

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