A geometric composition in the Gateway subway station.
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“Exit to Street”
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Oliver Building
One of sixteen buildings designed by the great Beaux-Arts master Daniel Burnham, the Oliver Building, finished in 1910, is typically elegant, and its scale is magnificent. It spans a whole city block. The back of it is a typical tripartite division that allowed large buildings like this to have more windows, more cross-ventilation, and possibly more of those desirable corner offices.
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Frick Park Gatehouse
The gatehouse to Frick Park, across from the Frick Art Museum, at Reynolds Street and Homewood Avenue.
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Tower at PNC Plaza in Progress
The Tower at PNC Plaza, Pittsburgh’s biggest new skyscraper since the 1980s, is still rising. Some of the exterior shell is appearing at lower levels, even though the skeleton hasn’t topped out yet. Here we see it from the Diamond (which is spelled “Market Square” on maps). Earlier pictures are here and here.
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School for Blind Children
This building from 1894, right next to Schenley Farms in Oakland, was designed by George L. Orth, and still houses the school he designed it for.
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In the Lobby of Heinz Hall
Heinz Hall, the home of the Pittsburgh Symphony, began its life as a 1920s movie palace. Although the decorative scheme was subdued somewhat in the restoration, there is still a strong element of fantasy in the interior.
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Sacred Heart, Shadyside
Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z3. Two splendid churches face each other across Shady Avenue. One is Ralph Adams Cram’s Calvary Episcopal. This is the other: Sacred Heart, one of the most tastefully beautiful Gothic churches in a city with one of the best collections of Gothic churches in the Western Hemisphere.
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Saints Peter and Paul: Our Most Endangered Landmark?
There are still too many endangered landmarks in Pittsburgh, in spite of a strong local preservation movement. This one is probably doomed. All that has saved it so far is that it would cost a good deal of money to tear down, and the revival of central East Liberty has not reached this part of the neighborhood yet. As much as it would cost to tear down, it would at this point cost much more to restore, and for what? No church would spend that kind of money, and it is really suitable for no other use.
The cornerstone is dated 1857, but that comes from the older and smaller church that preceded this building. The Rev. A. A. Lambing in 1880 described that building thus: “The church, situated on Larimer Avenue, is of brick, about 75 feet in length by 40 in width, and has a tower rising from the centre in front to the height of about 100 feet…. The church, though neatly finished, lacks the leading characteristics of any particular style of architecture.” The plaque below has the data for this building:
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Cathedral of Learning and the Carnegie
Seen from in front of Phipps Conservatory.
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Grand Staircase, Carnegie Museum
The Grand Staircase is meant to be the main focal point of the museum, but the unsympathetic addition of the Scaife Galleries, with a new main entrance, makes the staircase something of a backwater. It’s still grand, however, even when overrun by the International. The murals are by John White Alexander.
