The Romanesque Revival style was introduced in the U.S. in the mid-19th century, as architectural ideas from Europe, based on buildings of ancient Rome, were imported here.

American architect Henry Hobson Richardson embraced this style in the 1870s and 1880s, and developed a more dramatic version of this concept with bolder, wider arches and strong sculptural forms.

Interest in this new innovative style began to appear in many public buildings and residential mansions in the last few decades of the 19th century. After Richardson’s death in 1886, architects and builders continued to construct buildings that incorporated his unique style.

Buildings of the Romanesque Revival style are most easily identified by their unique qualities, such as pronounced round arches, cavernous entryways, window openings and heavy, massive stone or brick construction. Most have round towers with conical roofs, squat columns, and decorative plaques with intricate or interlacing patterns. The Romanesque style was especially suited to churches, courthouses, schools, university buildings, prisons, train stations and other public buildings.

Locally, the Romanesque Revival style can be seen in the work of architect John H. Barnes. Barnes graduated from the University of Illinois in 1888, and began his career in Colorado. One of his first commissions was the Orlando Flats apartment building in Denver, which designed in a Romanesque Revival style, is considered one of the better surviving examples of late 19th-century lower-income housing buildings.

After working out west, John Barnes arrived in Joliet in the early 1890s. Barnes was typical of many new architects of the era in that he was probably more of a self-taught builder than a professional architect.

After settling here, Barnes began a number of residential projects, particularly in the Upper Bluff District of the city, but also earned commissions for such local projects as the Farragut School and the Cutting Building.

The Cutting Building, located at 19 W. Jefferson St., was constructed in 1897, in the Romanesque Revival style. The south-facing, rectangular, four-story building was built using brick structural material with a limestone foundation.

Many of Joliet’s 19th-century buildings were erected using Bedford limestone quarried in Indiana or dolomite limestone quarried from the Joliet area. The light-color Bedford limestone is cut from solid beds of rock, which makes it an excellent building block as it bears an enormous pressure as a weight-bearing element.

The façade of the building is divided into two separate bays with rounded stone piers on the third and fourth floors. The larger bay has a foliate-designed pedimented parapet over a rounded arch that is situated over a pair of recessed round-arched windows. Decorative foliate designs also fill the area between the arch and the lintels.

The second and third floors are separated by a stone cornice that wraps around to the east side of the building. While the upper floors windows are all similar to the original double-hung sash windows, the first floor entryway and storefront window has been altered.