Tag: Carswell (Harold Thorpe)

  • Pittsburgh New Church, Point Breeze

    Church of the New Jerusalem, or the New Church

    This picturesque church, built for the Swedenborgian Church of the New Jerusalem in 1930, still serves its original congregation, now under the name “The New Church.” The architect was Harold Thorpe Carswell, who had been an apprentice of Ralph Adams Cram; to judge by the few references to him on line, this is one of his best-known works. Few Pittsburghers ever see it, however, because it sits at the end of a one-block dead-end residential street in Point Breeze.

    Belfry of the Church of the New Jerusalem, or the New Church
    Entrance
    Inscription

    The inscription, in florid medievalistic lettering, reads, “Nunc licet intrare in arcana fidei”—an abridged quotation from Swedenborg, which we may translate as “Now we are permitted to enter into the hidden things of the faith.”

    Belfry of the Church of the New Jerusalem, or the New Church
    Church of the New Jerusalem, or the New Church
    The New Church School

    The attached school is in a complementary Tudor style.

    Church of the New Jerusalem, or the New Church
    Olympus E-20N.

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