The architects’ rendering of the Pittsburgh Athletic Association Building. It was published as the frontispiece to the Catalogue of the Pittsburgh Architectural Club’s Fifth Exhibition, March, 1910.
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Pittsburgh Athletic Association Building, by Janssen & Abbott
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Bellefield Bridge
From Greater Pittsburg, 1905. A view across the Bellefield Bridge toward the Carnegie Library in Oakland. The bridge is still there, but you can’t see it. The hollow was filled in with the bridge still in place, and the Mary Schenley Memorial Fountain sits on top of the buried bridge now.
This view shows the library building before the enormous expansion in 1907. The two towers were victims of the expansion—but also perhaps victims of some negative criticism. The building in general—designed by Longfellow, Alden & Harlow—was highly praised, but some critics thought the towers a bit embarrassing. When Alden & Harlow (Longfellow had decided to stay in Boston) designed the new addition, the towers came down.
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A November View of the Cathedral of Learning
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The Fairfax, Oakland
Designed by Washington (D. C.) architect Philip Morison Jullien, the Fairfax was one of the grandest apartment houses in Pittsburgh when it opened in 1927. It certainly isn’t our biggest apartment building now, but it still makes a strong impression as you walk past on Fifth Avenue.
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. 
Kodak Retinette with Kentmere Pan 100 film. -
Neville House, Oakland, in Black and White
We saw Neville House in color earlier. These three monochrome pictures were taken with a Kodak Retinette made in the middle 1950s. Above, the exit from the porte cochere under the building. Below, the main entrance, including the porte cochere and the patio in front of it.
Kodak Retinette with Kentmere Pan 100 film. Thanks to Bodega Film Lab for developing the film and making it worth taking the Retinette out for a walk.
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South Side Slopes and Oakland
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. Rooftops of houses on the South Side Slopes, with Oakland and its usual cranes in the background.
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Craig Street Branch of the Pittsburgh National Bank, Oakland
Built in 1961–1962, this branch bank conveys the impression of being low and flat. It seems much shorter than it is; our brains don’t process how huge those concrete beams are, but note the height of the people in front. The deliberate lowness is an interesting choice, because the firm that designed it was Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, whose other famous works include the Sears Tower, which was the tallest building in the world for two decades; One World Trade Center, the current tallest building in the Western Hemisphere; and the Burj Khalifa, which so far has not been surpassed.
James D. Van Trump described the building in The Stones of Pittsburgh: “Two great concrete beams cantilevered from slender piers support a concrete roof of great span. A bold and stark essay in pure construction.” The roof extends dramatically from the building to shelter a small parking lot in the rear.
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Henry Street, Oakland
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. Outsiders visiting Pittsburgh are often surprised to find that, when buildings are in the way, we just drive right through them. This is Henry Street, which goes through the Software Engineering Institute.
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Neville House, Oakland
Tasso Katselas designed this apartment building, which opened in 1959. James D. Van Trump described it a few years later: “Glass, brick and concrete cage raised into space on arched stilts in the manner of Le Corbusier and at the time it was built the most ‘advanced’ apartment house in Pittsburgh.”
The drama of the building is in those arched stilts. They make approaching the building from the street an event. In typical Katselas fashion, they also solve a practical problem: they make room for a useful porte cochere while allowing the rest of the building to take up as much of its lot as possible.
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. -
Carnegie Lecture Hall
The Carnegie Lecture Hall is designed to put a large number of people close enough to hear a single lecturer. It was filled to capacity today with people who came to hear poetry, which makes the literate think good thoughts about Pittsburgh. The International Poetry Forum is back after fifteen years of silence, and the first poet to speak was its founder, Samuel Hazo, who at 96 years old seems to be aging backwards.
The interior of the hall as it was filling up.
