Belgian block set aside at a hole-digging project in a street in Oakland. What Pittsburgh needs is more holes in streets.
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Pile of Belgian Block
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The Colonnade, Oakland
This small apartment building on Centre Avenue is named for its most obvious and distinctive feature: a two-storey Doric colonnade that has just been freshly painted.
Addendum: According to the city architectural inventory (PDF), the Colonnade was built in 1907.
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Queen Anne House on Neville Avenue
Another remnant of the time when Neville Avenue, now part of the apartment district on the border of Oakland and Shadyside, was a suburban retreat for the well-to-do. In spite of the fire escapes and the loss of its front porch, this house preserves most of its fine detailing, including its exceptionally tall windows.
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Rooftops of Oakland and Phipps Conservatory
Looking across the rowhouses and apartments of central Oakland toward Phipps Conservatory. In the distance at upper left is the Park Mansions apartment building.
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Young Men and Women’s Hebrew Association, Oakland
Another of Benno Janssen’s imposing clubs. We have seen this building from the front before; this corner view gives us an impression of the scale of the whole structure. It is now Bellefield Hall of the University of Pittsburgh.
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Second Empire House on Neville Avenue, Oakland
Now apartments, this grand old house, right at the edge of Oakland on the border of Shadyside, is a remnant of the time when what is now the apartment district was a suburban retreat for the well-to-do.
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Masonic Temple, Oakland
Another magnificent clubhouse by Benno Janssen; it is now Alumni Hall of the University of Pittsburgh.
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Pittsburgh Athletic Association
One of Benno Janssen’s masterpieces; here we see it from the Cathedral of Learning grounds.
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Carnegie Institute
The titanic Carnegie Institute building was designed by Longfellow, Alden & Harlow, Andrew Carnegie’s favorite architects. Above: the Music Hall entrance. Below: the main building seen from the west, across Forbes Avenue.
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Chevron Science Center, Oakland
For people who like this kind of building, it is just the kind of building such people like, as Artemus Ward might say. It was finished in 1974; the design was by Kuhn, Newcomer & Valentour, a firm whose successors, “DRAW Collective,” still specialize in educational buildings. This building replaced the embarrassingly classical State Hall, the first building Pitt put up when it moved to Oakland, thus sparing us the sight of all those columns and pediments.
