CHURCH OF THE HOLY CITY    WASHINGTON, D.C.
ARCHITECT - CHURCH OF THE HOLY CITY

   THE EMANUEL SWEDENBORG CENTER
          For Worship and Study

 
 
 

 Herbert Langford Warren
 

Herbert Langford Warren (1857 – 1917) designed the Church of the Holy City in
Washington, DC. This Swedenborgian church, built in the years 1894-96 and 1908,
stands in the midst of what is now the 16th Street Historic District neighborhood in
Northwest Washington.

Warren’s biographer, Maureen Meister, has stated that he was “an important link in the chain of individuals who contributed to the architectural practice, theories of design, and the teaching of architectural history in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century.” Warren founded the School of Architecture at Harvard (now the Graduate School of Design) and was a charter member and long-time president of the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts.

The qualities that distinguish Warren’s architectural designs are aptly described in the introduction to his posthumously published book The Foundations of Classic Architecture. “He designed with skill and restraint, and all his buildings are marked by the same scrupulous regard for historic precedent, consistency of character, and refinement of detail.”

Born in England of an English mother and an American father, a Swedenborgian missionary, Warren was a founding member of the Swedenborgian church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, established in 1888. Catharine Clark Warren, Warren’s wife, was the daughter of the Reverend James Reed, a notable Swedenborgian minister in Boston.

Warren’s body of work, in addition to the church in Washington, DC, includes two much admired structures, the Swedenborg Chapel in Cambridge and the Troy Orphan Asylum in Troy, New York.

For more information about Warren, see Architecture and the Arts and Crafts Movement in Boston: Harvard’s H. Langford Warren by Maureen Meister, published by UPNE in 2003.

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H. Langford Warren