A notable example of Art Deco in Shadyside.
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A Romanesque Church for Sale
This charming little church was most recently used as a law office; but the lawyers are moving out, and here is your chance to have an architecturally unique studio, office, or even residence on the South Side. It is about the same height and depth as the rowhouses next door, but comes with its own corner parking lot.
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The Bellefield
An apartment building whose elaborately decorated upper floors make it look a bit top-heavy.
Addendum: According to the city architectural inventory (PDF), the Bellefield Dwellings apartment house was built in 1904. It is listed with the State Historic Preservation Office.
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation identifies the architect as New Yorker Thomas Carlton Strong, who later moved to Pittsburgh, converted to Catholicism, and designed Sacred Heart Church in Shadyside. Now apartments for senior citizens, it was built as luxury urban housing where each apartment included servants’ quarters.
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Renaissance Palace in Schenley Farms
Many styles of houses line the quiet, pleasant streets of Schenley Farms, but the neighborhood has an unusual concentration of small Italian Renaissance palaces.
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Entrance to the Gerber Apartments, Shadyside
Otherwise not remarkable among the many classically inspired apartment houses in Shadyside, this one has an entrance that certainly stands out. It makes a spectacle of itself, in fact. The capitals on the massive square columns are more or less Corinthian, but Corinthian is usually the lightest and airiest-looking of the classical orders, whereas this construction gives the impression that it outweighs the whole building behind it.
This picture was taken with what might be called a toy camera. It was a no-name digital camera with stated 18-megapixel resolution, but clearly those 18 megapixels are achieved by multiplying some much smaller number of pixels. It may amuse you to enlarge the picture to full size and examine the results.
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Spanish Mission Style in Dormont
A modest commercial building on Potomac Avenue, this is a good example of the Spanish Mission style in commercial buildings and apartment houses. The style—a kind of Eastern fantasy of the Southwest—is certainly not unknown elsewhere in the Pittsburgh area, but for some reason it was especially popular in Dormont, where numerous Mission-style buildings still stand. Doubtless the original roof overhang above the name was tile, and very probably green tile. Below, the building at Potomac and Glenmore Avenues retains its original green roof tiles.
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Engine Company No. 28, Shadyside
A large classical firehouse with its front on Filbert Street and a long, well-designed side on Elmer Street.
The Filbert Street front.
Arms of the city of Pittsburgh, on the left side of the front.
Arms of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, on the right side of the front.
The Elmer Street side looks like an Italian Renaissance palace.
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Minnetonka Building, Shadyside
Most pedestrians on Walnut Street pass this building without noticing it; at best they may glance at the rounded corners, but otherwise it strikes them as just another modernist building. It is in fact one of the very earliest outbreaks of modernism in Pittsburgh: it was designed by Frederick Scheibler and opened in 1908. It must have been startlingly modern indeed surrounded by Edwardian Shadyside.
