Father Pitt

A Daniel Burnham design built for the McCreery & Company department store,⁽¹⁾ this building opened in 1904. It originally had a classical base with a pair of arched entrances on Wood Street, but beginning in 1939 it had various alterations, so that nothing remains of the original Burnham design below the fourth floor. This was one of Burnham’s more minimalistic designs; in it we see how thin the wall can be between classicism and modernism.

Below, an abstract composition with elements of this building reflected in Two PNC Plaza across the street.

Footnotes

1. Our main source for the information in this article is “D. H. Burnham & Company in Pittsburgh” by Albert M. Tannler, at the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation site. (↩)