Father Pitt

Tag: Classical Architecture

  • Werner Building, East Liberty

    Werner Building, Highland Avenue front
    Werner Building, inscription

    This beautiful building has a long and varied history. It seems to have been built a little before 1910 by a dry-cleaning company.1 After a while the East Liberty Chamber of Commerce moved in to preside over the slow decline of East Liberty. In 2001, when the East Liberty revival was barely beginning, the Werner Building became a performance-art space. Now, with East Liberty booming, it’s a profitable property.

    Corner view

    The metalwork on top supported a billboard where artists spelled out messages, but in 2018 one artist posted a message so offensive that the building’s owner had it removed and shut down the billboard scheme. What was this offensive message? “THERE ARE BLACK PEOPLE IN THE FUTURE.” That was all. Father Pitt can only say that, if you are offended by the idea that there are Black people in the future, then you can go off and get yourself your own future, because old Pa Pitt does not want to be part of it.

    Terra cotta
    More terra cotta

    The whole building is lavishly festooned with terra cotta and stained glass.

    Stained glass
    Baum Boulevard side
    1. Addendum: The architect was Frederick Sauer, and the building was probably finished in 1908. “Among the Architects,” Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, June 11, 1907: “The same architect [Sauer] is taking bids for a four-story store and office building to be erected for Oswald Werner on 58×140 feet at Baum street and Highland avenue, East End. The building, which will be constructed of white enameled terra cotta, will cost about $60.000. It is expected to have it completed by April 1, 1908.” The building as it stands is two floors, although it looks as though it might have been designed for additional floors later. The white enameled terra cotta, however, is distinctive.​ And there’s no doubt about the owner, who is immortalized in terra cotta. Sauer had also designed a house for Oswald Werner in 1891, which still stands in Highland Park today. ↩︎

  • The Liberty Theater As It Was Built

    Update: Once in a while old Pa Pitt has a chance to boast about his architectural instincts, and here is one of those occasions. In the original article, he wrote that he suspected Edward B Lee of having designed the remodeling of the theater into an office building. He was right. Source: The American Contractor, December 15, 1923: “Store & Office Bldg. (remod. from theater): $150,000. 5 sty. & bas. H. tile. Liberty av. & Strawberry Alley. Archt. E. B. Lee, Chamber of Commerce bldg. Owner The Fidelity Title & Trust Co., Wilson A. Shaw, chrm. of bd., 343 Fourth av. Gen. contr. let to Cuthbert Bros., Bessemer bldg.”

    The original text of Father Pitt’s article follows.

    Edward B. Lee was the architect of the Liberty Theater—or Theatre, as theatrical people often insist on spelling it—when it was built in 1912. These pictures were published in The Brickbuilder in 1913, so they show the theater as it was when it was new. Either the theater failed or the owners decided it would be more profitable as an office building, because only eleven years later, in 1924,1 it was remodeled into the Baum Building, and it still stands today.

    The shell and outlines are the same, but quite a bit was changed externally. Old Pa Pitt suspects that Lee was the architect of these changes, too, and they were accomplished so elegantly that we would never know the building had not been planned that way from the beginning.

    These small drawings (orchestra, first balcony, second balcony) show the aggressive adaptations Mr. Lee had to make to the irregular shape of the lot—a common difficulty for buildings on the southeast side of Liberty Avenue, where the two grids of the irrationally rationalistic eighteenth-century street plan collide.

    Detail over the entrance. These decorations disappeared when the building was converted to offices.

    Corner detail. The cornice and pilasters survive, but the elaborate terra-cotta decoration between the pilasters vanished in 1924.

    1. In the original version of this article, Father Pitt had given the date as 1920, following a city architectural survey. The listing from the American Contractor proves that the date was actually no earlier than 1924. ↩︎

  • Hunt Armory, Shadyside

    Hunt Armory

    This block-long palace is a startlingly imposing building to run across in the residential back streets of Shadyside. The dwellers in the houses surrounding it must feel a glow of confidence knowing they are well protected should the Prussians invade. The building was designed by the W. G. Wilkins Company, also responsible for the Maul Building and the Frick & Lindsay Company Building (now the Andy Warhol Museum). It opened in 1916.

    Main entrance
    Arms of Pennsylvania
    South entrance

  • St. Mary’s Church, Sharpsburg

    St. Mary’s in Sharpsburg

    Detroit architect Peter Dederichs gave us this gorgeous Renaissance basilica, which is crammed into an absurdly tiny space at the foot of the bluff in Sharpsburg. The exterior hasn’t changed in any significant way since the building went up in 1916, as we can see in a cover story in Stone magazine from February of 1919. In that story we learn that the stone was Dark Hollow Gray Bedford limestone from Indiana, and it has stood up perfectly to more than a century of Pittsburgh atmosphere.

    Front of St. Mary’s Church, Sharpsburg
    Date stone

    The foundation of the congregation.

    Date stone

    The building of the church.

    Capitals

    Capitals of the Corinthian order.

    Capital
    Capitals
    Tower
    Entrance
    Arch
    Rear of the church

    The apse, and an especially lush growth of utility cables.

    View of St. Mary’s from Penn Street

    Looking toward the church on Penn Street.

    St. Mary’s Church, Sharpsburg

  • School of Mines Building, University of Pittsburgh

    Henry Hornbostel’s drawing of the south façade of the School of Mines Building, later State Hall. It was demolished in 1973 to make way for the Chevron Science Center, and perhaps someone thinks that was an improvement.

    This drawing was published in 1909 in The Brickbuilder, an architectural magazine from which we’ll harvest more illustrations in the future.

  • Mercy School of Nursing, Bluff

    Mercy School of Nursing, Pittsburgh

    Father Pitt believes this is one of the buildings designed for Mercy Hospital by Edward Stotz, but would be happy to be corrected.

  • Homestead Municipal Building

    Homestead municipal building

    It would be interesting to know who was the architect of this eclectic pile, and whether he was the nephew of the burgess. It might have been more attractive before the bricks and stone accents were painted the drabbest possible grey, but it was probably never a beautiful building. It has, however, grown some character with age, and old Pa Pitt is pleased that it has been fairly well preserved, except for the installation of some standard-size windows and doors in holes that are too big for them.

    Inscription

    This stonework reminds Father Pitt of Titus de Bobula.

    From down the hill

  • Monongahela Trust Co., Homestead

    Inscription

    This beautiful Corinthian bank has found another use, so we hope the building will be preserved now that things are looking up in Homestead.

    Monongahela Trust Co.

    Think how invitingly bright the banking hall must have been when those lofty windows were open to the light.

    Capital

  • The Peoples Building, McKeesport

    Peoples Building

    The richly detailed Peoples Building deserves owners and tenants who will love it, and we hope it can find them. It has at least been stabilized by its current owner, and it looks like an attractive place to have an office.

    Walnut Street entrance

    These entrances want clocks, but the elegance of the gleaming white stone is unimpaired.

    Roof ornament

    This classical roof ornament was clearly meant to be right in the middle of the Fifth Avenue side, but it appears that the building was expanded by two more bays not long after it was built.

    The McKeesport Community Newsroom site gives us A Peek Inside the Peoples Building, showing us a wonderful time capsule that it would almost be a shame to disturb. If old Pa Pitt were a billionaire, he would buy the building, preserve all the contents as they are, and call it a museum, and then not care whether anyone actually paid the 50¢ admission fee, because he would be a billionaire.

    Addendum: The architects were Mowbray & Uffinger, New York specialists in bank buildings.

  • C. M. Schwab Industrial School, Homestead

    C. M. Schwab Industrial School

    When a new generation of architects feels utter contempt for the work of the previous generation, this is the result. Fortunately, the contempt extended to ignoring the details of the original building, which are therefore preserved, except for the loss of the cornice. Like several other previously abandoned buildings in the historic center of Homestead, this one has now found another use.

    Inscription

    The school was named for Charles M. Schwab, who was superintendent of the Homestead Works and later the first president of United States Steel.

    Entrance