Father Pitt

Tag: Classical Architecture

  • Penn Water Company Building, Wilkinsburg

    Penn Water Company building

    J. H. Giesy was the architect of this little utility-company palace, built in 1916.1

    Entrance
    Above the entrance
    Lunette with address 712
    Shield with relief

    The relief in the shield is so shallow that it has eroded to near invisibility. It looks to old Pa Pitt like an allegorical figure pouring out water, but he is happy to be corrected by someone with a better eye or more accurate information.

    Penn Water Company Building
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.

    We have more pictures of the Penn Water Company from a year ago, before the doorway got its coat of fluorescent aqua.

    1. American Contractor, October 16, 1915, p. 58. “Office Bldg.: 2 sty. & bas. 50×100. $20M. Wilkinsburg, Pa. Archt. J. H. Giesey, Mellon Bank bldg., Pittsburgh. Owner Penn Water Co., Oliver bldg., Wilkinsburg. Bids in; will soon let contr. Brk.” ↩︎
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  • Apartment Building by Frederick Scheibler, Park Place

    Apartment building at 226 East End Avenue

    Before he fell under the spell of the European modernists, Frederick Scheibler had already developed his own distinct version of the classical style. Even if he had never progressed beyond the early style we see in this building from 1903, we would still think he was one of our more interesting minor architects.

    Apartment building at 226 East End Avenue
    Apartment building at 226 East End Avenue

    The two-storey porch with a balcony dangling between the colossal columns is unusual—but not unprecedented. The Ruskin Villa apartment building in Wilkinsburg uses exactly the same idea, and in many other ways is similar to this building. In construction listings, L. A. Raisig was named as the architect of that building, which went up just a few months before Raisig took on young Frederick Scheibler as a partner. Father Pitt’s probably unprovable hypothesis is that Scheibler was already working for Raisig, and Raisig assigned the Ruskin Villa to him. This building in Park Place, then, would be a case of Scheibler adapting and refining ideas he had already worked out three years earlier.

    Front door
    Apartment building at 226 East End Avenue
    Apartment building at 226 East End Avenue
    Bay window
    Sony Alpha 3000.
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  • Park Place School

    Park Place School

    Ellsworth Dean designed this school, built in 1903. The rich cinnamon brick—actually made of several related colors of brick—still looks dignified today. The school is now the primary school for the Environmental Charter School.

    Park Place School
    Ornament
    Entrance
    Park Place School

    This year’s garden emphasizes native American crops, including corn and Echinacea purpurea.

    Waverly Street porch
    Rear of the school
    Rear of the school with half-round projection
    Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.

    We have more pictures of the Park Place School in the winter, including a complete front elevation.

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  • Sterrett School, Point Breeze

    Inscription: Sterrett School

    Edward J. Carlisle designed this school, built in 1898, when it was in the vanguard of the new White City classical style for schools in Pittsburgh.

    Sterrett School

    At first you might take it for a stone building, but the walls are actually of stone-colored brick. At some point in the 1960s, the big front windows were partly filled in, but otherwise the school is in good shape.

    Sterrett School
    Sterrett School

    Lush plantings of trees make it impossible to see the whole front at once, but make for very pleasant grounds.

    Sterrett School
    Main entrance
    Book ornament
    Ornament
    Ionic capitals
    Lintels and Vitruvian scroll
    Front wall of the school
    World War I memorial

    A plaque commemorates World War I soldiers from the community. The names will all be legible if you enlarge the picture.

    Reynolds Street entrance

    The side entrances are near-duplicates of the front entrance.

    Public garden

    The school has always kept a public garden, which is delightfully crowded with a wide variety of plants from native to tropical.

    Alocasia

    From the tropics, we have an Alocasia; behind it, the very native Joe-Pye-Weed.

    Monarch waystation
    Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.

    Milkweeds for our butterfly friends.

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  • Werner Building, East Liberty

    Werner Building

    Frederick Sauer was the architect of this ornate commercial palace, built in 1908. It is covered in white enameled terra-cotta ornaments that give it a sense of opulence above its budget.

    Street sign for S. Highland Ave. and Baum St.
    Highland Avenue front elevation
    Entrance
    Transom
    Inscription: Werner Bldg.
    Window
    Cornice
    Terra-cotta ornament

    We also have some earlier pictures of the Werner Building and some remarks on its history.

    Werner Building
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
    Comments

  • First National Bank, Indiana

    First National Bank

    A fine classical bank adapted as the headquarters of the Indiana County Tourist Bureau. The interior is well preserved, except for a partition behind the teller counters that obscures some of the intended symmetry of the design.

    Interior of the bank, looking toward the rear
    Interior looking toward the front
    Former teller window
    Decorative grotesque panel over a door
    Fountain
    Comments

  • Midtown Building, Indiana

    Midtown Building, front elevation

    With five floors in a base-shaft-cap formula, this imposing classical building is the closest thing downtown Indiana has to a traditional skyscraper.

    Entrance
    Midtown Building
    Midtown Building and Philadelphia Street
    Midtown Building with the old courthouse behind it
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
    Comments

  • Carl Building (Shields Building), Wilkinsburg

    Carl Building

    Designed in 1902 by the Beezer Brothers, this was Wilkinsburg’s contribution to the early skyscraper age. It was put up for Leopold Vilsack, a real-estate investor who was also one of the founders of the Iron City brewery. He named it for his son Carl; later it became known as the Shields Building.

    Architects’ rendering
    Pittsburgh Gazette, April 12, 1902, p. 8.

    When it was announced, the building was to have eight floors. One floor fell away between initial design and construction.

    Base of the building

    The building is now apartments. The base has been refurbished with a simpler and more abstract design that hardly registers as different from the original until we look at it closely.

    Cap with terra-cotta ornaments

    The cap is festooned with elaborate Baroque terra-cotta ornaments.

    Cap with terra cotta
    Carl Building
    Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR.
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  • Horner School, Wilkinsburg

    Inscription over the Wallace Avenue entrance to the Horner School

    Alden & Harlow were the architects of this classically symmetrical school, which was built in 1926. Alden had died in 1908, and Harlow had only another year to live (he died in 1927); it seems that by this time much of the design work in the firm was done by Howard K. Jones. The school now is kept in good shape as the home of various community services.

    Horner School
    Horner School
    Horner School
    Terra-cotta ornament

    The 1920s were in the middle of the golden age of terra-cotta ornament.

    Terra-cotta ornament
    Cornice with terra cotta
    Clock
    Side of the school, showing slope

    The architects had a typically Pittsburghish lot to deal with, so the school has four floors above ground on the Wallace Avenue front and two in the rear on North Avenue.

    North Avenue face
    North Avenue entrance
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.

    The North Avenue entrance is reached by a bridge over a sort of trench that exposes the windows of the floor below.

    Comments

  • Swissvale Trust Company

    Swissvale Trust Company inscription

    Old Pa Pitt knows nothing about this little bank except that it was built in about 1921. Its classical style is designed to say “bank” as soon as you see the building.

    Swissvale Trust Company

    Those spindly Corinthian columns at the entrance look like an afterthought. Father Pitt imagines the architect presenting his clean and dignified plans to the client, who immediately points and says, “Where are the columns? It’s a bank, for Pete’s sake.”

    Washington Avenue side
    Ornament over the entrance
    Sony Alpha 3000; Kodak EasyShare Max Z990.
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