This Renaissance palace, built in 1919 for coal baron Ira Bixler, was designed by Alden & Harlow.
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Ira Bixler House, Schenley Farms
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
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Metal Awning on the Oliver Building
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS. It could use a lick of paint—which is odd on an otherwise beautifully maintained building—but this elaborate metal awning still makes a sight worth stopping to admire on Oliver Avenue.
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Terra-Cotta Front on Smithfield Street
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS. The ground-floor storefront was replaced at some time in the modernist era, but the upper two floors preserve two-thirds of a fine terra-cotta front.
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Mellon National Bank Building
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS. Trowbridge & Livingston, Andrew Mellon’s favorite architects, designed this block-long palace of finance. The legendary interior was destroyed in the 1990s for a blink-and-you-missed-it department store, but the exterior is almost completely unchanged from the day the building opened in 1925.
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Fifth Wood Building
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS. George Schwan was the architect of this building, according to a city architectural survey. Its modernistic classicism makes it a good neighbor to a wide variety of architectural styles. From a distance, it gives us the impression of an all-stone building, but in fact the effect is achieved with a carefully balanced mixture of terra-cotta tiles and stone-colored brick.
More pictures of the Fifth Wood Building.
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Restoring the Beltzhoover Sub-District School
We promised some cheerful news from the Hilltop neighborhoods, and here it is. The restoration of the old Beltzhoover Sub-District School, which is being turned into apartments, is being done with care and not a little ambition. The appearance of the original school, designed by W. J. Shaw, is being kept as close to original as practical, including new windows of the right size (never guaranteed when schools are converted). Beside it a whole new addition is going up, which will complement the style of the original school. The restored school will give Beltzhoover a building to be proud of, and we can hope that it may be one of the seeds of a neighborhood renaissance.
The school was set on a mound in the middle of a city block, with a lot of climbing for students no matter which street they entered from. (Palmetto Way, however, mounts the hill between the main streets, and will give residents a level entrance to the building.)
Kodak EasyShare Max Z990; Nikon COOLPIX P100.
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Chamber of Commerce Building
From The Chamber of Commerce Building, 1917, published just before the building opened. The Chamber of Commerce Building seems to be neglected in Pittsburgh lore; nobody mentions it, and in fact the Skyscraper Page Pittsburgh skyscraper diagram skips right over it, ignoring it completely, though the diagram includes a number of considerably smaller and shorter buildings. Even old Pa Pitt has never featured this building before, mostly because it is difficult to get a picture of the whole building. So here is an illustration of the building when it was new; it has changed very little. It is easier to pick out details with a versatile lens, so here are a few of the interesting decorations. The architects were Edward B. Lee, who moved his office into the building when it was finished, and James P. Piper.
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
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Beaux-Arts Terrace in Sheraden
Thomas Scott designed this terrace of four houses, built in 1912,1 and they are kept in remarkably fine shape. The updates have been handled with taste and an understanding of the original style, so that today there is hardly a finer Beaux-Arts terrace of cheap little rowhouses in the city. We have talked before about the challenge of making inexpensive housing seem attractive; it was a challenge that Scott met and conquered.
The doors of the two end units are framed in scrupulously proper Doric fashion.
The two inner units have these unique sawed-off arches over their front doors.
Kodak EasyShare Z981. - Source: The Construction Record, December 2, 1911: “Architect T. M. Scott, Machesney building, has completed plans for four 2-story brick residences, to be erected on Bergman street, Sheraden, for W. McCausland, 3022 Zephyr avenue, Sheridan. Cost $15,000.” McCausland still owned them in 1923, according to plat maps. ↩︎
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Belmar School, Homewood
Thomas Cox McKee was the architect of this school, built in 1901. This Renaissance palace is probably his most important remaining work, now that the Shady Avenue Cumberland Presbyterian Church is gone. The school is no longer in use, so Father Pitt assigns it the Vulnerable label on his scale of Least Concern, Near Threatened, Vulnerable, Endangered, Critically Endangered, and Demolished.
Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR. A modernistic entrance is out of character with the main school, but it is probably better than a halfhearted attempt to match the original style.
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Hall of Sculpture
The Hall of Sculpture in the Carnegie (as seen by the ultra-wide auxiliary camera on old Pa Pitt’s phone, so don’t expect too much if you enlarge the picture), designed in imitation of the interior of the Parthenon.
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