Some large panoramas of the Pittsburgh skyline as seen from Mount Washington.
-
Allegheny Elks’ Lodge, Dutchtown
Sony Alpha 3000. Men’s clubs live in terror of windows, which they gradually block up with glass blocks, bricks, or whatever else is handy. But the outlines of this dignified clubhouse remain as the architect drew them. It was designed in 1924 by Edward B. Lee, replacing an earlier lodge (designed by William E. Snaman) that had been destroyed by fire.
The style is noticeably similar to the style of the Americus Republican Club, also by Lee. The buildings are radically different shapes, but Lee applied the same design vocabulary to make both clubs look respectable in their different locations.
-
Moderne Industrial Building on the North Side
A streamlined industrial building on North Avenue. We suspect that the part now filled in with red diamonds may have originally been a storefront or showroom for the business.
Sony Alpha 3000. -
Dwight Avenue Houses in the Dormont Park Plan
The Dormont Park plan was laid out in the late 1920s along three “mere” streets—Windermere, Earlsmere, and Grassmere Avenues, each a block long, along with the intersecting parts of Dormont and Kelton Avenues. Just before the Second World War, the Bupp-Salkeld Company added a row of thirteen houses on Dwight Avenue, parallel to the meres. They are mostly well preserved, and they make up a small museum of middle-class styles at the end of the interwar era.
It would look better with real shutters, but the stonework is still outstandingly picturesque.
Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6. -
Oakmont Presbyterian Church
A typical corner-tower church in an adapted version of the Perpendicular Gothic style.
Addendum: The architect was J. L. Beatty. Source: Gazette, March 12, 1903. “From plans now being drawn by Architect J. Lewis Beatty the Presbyterian congregation of Oakmont will build a neat brick church to cost about $25.000.”
-
The Southern Side of Western Avenue, Allegheny West
Western Avenue in Allegheny West is an eclectic mix of buildings, from grand mansions to humble rowhouses to Art Deco storefronts. Here are some of the buildings on the southern side of the street, photographed late in the day when the sun was glancing across them.
This house, now the Parador Inn, was one of the fine houses put back in top shape by serial restorationist Joedda Sampson. It has a detailed history at the Allegheny West site.
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. -
Transition House, Mount Lebanon
What, you may ask, is a “transition house”? It is a house designed to look traditional but use the most modern construction methods available in 1936. The idea was that the public could be induced to accept modern construction if it came without the modernist offenses against traditional aesthetics. Architect Brandon Smith—best remembered for some extravagant mansions in Fox Chapel—gave it all the decorative flourishes a 1930s suburbanite might expect from a “Colonial,” but under the stone and brick were super-modern materials developed at the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research.
Our information and the architect’s drawing above come from an article about the house in the Pittsburgh Press, published when the house was under construction in 1936. The whole article will interest a few architectural historians, so we have transcribed it below.
(more…)2 responses
