Date: 1881
Architect: William Ralph Emerson

The original headquarters of the Boston Art Club stands on the corner of Dartmouth and Newbury Streets in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood. The building, shrouded in trees and dwarfed by its neighbor, the New Old South Church, rewards a closer look, with details like terra cotta panels, quoins, balconies, a Richardsonian arch and columns with incised capitals. The corner tower anchors the building nicely to the busy intersection.

William Ralph Emerson (1833-1917), nephew of writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, designed the Art Club headquarters at a time when many architects were breaking from the orderly, symmetrical Second Empire style in favor of more picturesque medieval structures. This style, often referred to as Queen Anne, featured asymmetrical massing and lots of surface variation. Brick Queen Anne buildings frequently sported terra cotta (Italian for "baked earth") embellishments.

Much of Boston's Back Bay was built over the latter half of the 19th century on landfill transported in by train from Needham, a nearby suburb, and the buildings that marched westward across the neighborhood from the base of Beacon Hill reflected the architectural trends of the day. Near the Art Club, you'll find several medieval-looking buildings clad in red brick and sandstone, including the Exeter Street Theater (1884), 277 Dartmouth Street (1878) and 109 Newbury Street.