The South Side Cemetery in Carrick does not have monuments by famous architects like the ones in the Allegheny Cemetery, but some of its residents did have good taste in sculpture.
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Mourner on the Braun Mausoleum, Carrick
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The Egyptian Style in Allegheny Cemetery
In Pittsburgh the Egyptian style of architecture was briefly popular in the early twentieth century, almost always in association with death. The mausoleums in Egyptian style seem usually to belong to Masons, who trace their lodge and rituals back to the days of the Pharaohs, implausible as that may seem to Egyptologists. Some integrate Christian, Masonic, and Egyptian symbols rather uncomfortably.
We begin with the Hartley-Given mausoleum (1913).
This is a simple and straightforward interpretation of an Egyptian tomb, and we can see the elements that, in the Allegheny Cemetery, almost invariably mark the Egyptianness of the style: the sloping sides and the lotus columns. Over the entrance we usually find a winged scarab entwined by serpents—which Father Pitt believes is a Masonic symbol; perhaps a Mason will correct him if he is wrong.
Next, the Lockhart mausoleum (1903):
Here is another typical Egyptian-tomb design, again with the requisite Egyptian signifiers; but in this one the porch projects from the structure instead of being inset.
The Sproal-Splane mausoleum (1917) is another variation on the same theme, with all the same elements and another inset porch:
Inside is a window that seems like a riot of symbols uneasily coexisting:
(The inscription around the cross and crown reads “IN HOC SIGNO VINCES.”)
All these are in reasonably good taste. But there is one Egyptian mausoleum that proudly flaunts its kitsch, one of the most extraordinary memorials in a cemetery full of extraordinary memorials:
All the same elements are there, but the Winter mausoleum (1930)—whose colossal scale is hard to convey in a photograph—adds its own unique accessories. John Russell Pope, the famous beaux-arts architect, designed this mausoleum for banker Emil Winter—but “designed” is not really the right word here. The Woolworth mausoleum in Woodlawn, the Bronx, is nearly identical; Winter apparently saw it and told Pope “I want that,” and Pope gave it to him.
Mr. Winter’s amazing sphinxes bear an expression that old Pa Pitt can only describe as “snooty.”
The bronze door depicts Mr. Winter himself, large as life and in full Pharaonic regalia, about to set off for his journey into the afterlife. Even this is identical to the bronze door of the Woolworth mausoleum, except for the substitution of Mr. Winter’s face.
Inside is a stained-glass window that reminds Father Pitt of cheap illustrated Sunday-school handouts, showing Mr. Winter properly enthroned. (It was devilishly hard to get a picture of this window, because the front doors are actually backed by a mesh screen. This was the best old Pa Pitt could do.)Finally, as a coda to our little Egyptian tour, the Huhn monument is actually a pyramid.
This is a pyramid of a curiously specific type: it is (if Father Pitt’s architectural history is correct, and he loves to be corrected when he is wrong) a Roman interpretation of the Egyptian pyramid, with proportions more like those of the Pyramid of Cestius along the Appian Way than like those of a true Egyptian pyramid. This also is a Mason’s tomb; if you enlarge the picture (by clicking on it), you can see the Masonic symbols at the base. -
St. Augustine
St. Augustine reads to the people of Lower Lawrenceville from the front of the church that bears his name.
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Rhodes Brothers Concrete
Not quite as artistic as the Wadsworth plates, Rhodes Brothers concrete plates are still attractive designs. This one was set in a driveway in Friendship.
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Heinz Hall Details
You need a sharp eye, and a long lens, to pick out some of the details on Heinz Hall from ground level. At first the exterior appears to be rather staid, but it rewards close examination with some charmingly whimsical decorations. (The white spots visible in these pictures are snowflakes.)
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Eye Benches at Katz Plaza
Katz Plaza in the theater district: a dusting of snow highlights the contours of these eye-shaped benches by Louise Bourgeois, who also designed the waterfall fountain in the background.
If you sit on a bench whose back looks like a giant eyeball, shouldn’t you be able to see behind you?
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Victory in Lawrenceville
Lawrenceville has two First World War memorials. The most famous is the Doughboy in Doughboy Square (which of course is a triangle) at the intersection of Penn Avenue and Butler Street. But this more modest memorial at the corner of Butler and 46th Street is a charming statue of Victory that would be the pride of any neighborhood that did not already possess a greater masterpiece.
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Hall of Architecture, Carnegie Museum
This is the most breathtaking single room in the Western Hemisphere. That statement is likely to provoke some opposition, but Father Pitt is willing to defend it.
In the late nineteenth century, many museums collected plaster casts of the great monuments and sculptures of the past. The casting preserved the minutest details of the surface in three dimensions, so that a museum visitor can study every chisel mark on a famous Romanesque facade without having to hop on a steamer and travel to Europe.
In the twentieth century, the cult of originality persuaded most museum curators that these plaster casts were worthless. Almost all the great collections were broken up and thrown out. Only three of them remain in the world, and only one of them—this one—is still in the space that was built to house it, never having been shuffled from one wing to another or stored for years under a highway overpass.
Now, at last, some of the more enlightened art historians are beginning to understand the value of the casts. Here a Pittsburgher can study the whole history of Western architecture from Egypt to the Renaissance without so much as crossing the Monongahela. But even more important is the fact that these casts are more than a century old. The twentieth century, with its corrosive pollution and horrendous wars, was more destructive to ancient monuments than any other century. But here we can see exact replicas of these monuments as they were before all the corrosion and destruction. This collection is a unique cultural treasure, worth crossing a continent or an ocean to see.
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Hall of Sculpture, Carnegie Museum
The Hall of Sculpture was built in imitation of the interior of the Parthenon, with marble from the same quarry that supplied the marble for the famous Athenian temple. It was intended to house the Carnegie’s collection of plaster casts of famous sculptures, some of which still adorn the balcony, and some of which have been moved to the Hall of Architecture. On the floor below, staff are hanging transparencies from clotheslines. Why? We’ll find out when they’re done.
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Primitive Science, Modern Science
These bronze reliefs by Sidney Waugh stand over what was once the main entrance to the Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science (to give its full title). From loincloths to lab coats is less of a distance than you might think: Waugh took pains to illustrate the remarkable cleverness of the “primitive” American Indians who had long-distance communication (via smoke signals) and snowshoes, an invention Waugh chose specifically because it arose only in North America and nowhere else. As for Modern Science, we should not underestimate the difficulty of imparting dignity to a figure in a lab coat, a feat Waugh has carried off with aplomb. To a world used to the opposition of modern science against primitive superstition, Waugh presents the two figures as engaged in exactly the same enterprise.
