Father Pitt

Tag: Classical Architecture

  • Cathedral Mansions, Shadyside

    Cathedral Mansions

    A modernized form of classicism, or a classicized modernism, makes an attractive apartment block on Ellsworth Avenue at the western edge of Shadyside. It is mostly a group of rectangular boxes, but a few classical details—like the Vitruvian-scroll molding above the third floor—give it some character. Father Pitt suspects that it has lost a cornice; it might have been late enough to do without a cornice, but that Vitruvian scroll looks as though it ought to be echoing something at the top of the building, and slight signs of damage up there suggest that something was peeled off at some point.

    Addendum: Thanks to the research of a kind correspondent, we now have a picture of Cathedral Mansions in 1929, and it does indeed have a proper cornice.

    Another addendum: Another correspondent provides the information that the architect was John M. Donn, the Washington (D. C.) architect who also designed the Investment Building downtown. The information comes from an Iron City Sand and Gravel advertisement in the Pittsburg Press, Monday, November 22, 1926 (page 30).

  • College of Fine Arts, Carnegie Mellon University

    Front of the building

    Built to be an inspiring showcase of the world’s best traditions in art, the College of Fine Arts building was positioned at the top of the Mall, as if the arts might be of some importance even in a technical school.

    Looking up the stairs
    Oblique view

    Niches along the front of the building pay tribute to various architectural and sculptural traditions.

    Corinthian, Doric, Ionic
    Gothic
    Egyptian, Moorish, Indian
    Interior
    Interior
    Through the trees

  • Baker Hall, Carnegie Mellon University

    Baker Hall from the Mall.

    From the beginning, the campus of Carnegie Tech was designed by Palmer and Hornbostel as a warren of interconnected buildings surrounding pleasant green spaces. The older buildings, like Baker Hall, celebrate the engineering and architecture they were designed to teach. Old Pa Pitt particularly loves this stairwell window, which expresses the idea of stairs with a clarity that modernist architects of a later generation would not have been able to match.

    Frew Street side of Baker Hall.

  • Hamerschlag Hall, Carnegie Mellon University

    Hamerschlag Hall

    Hamerschlag Hall, the centerpiece and symbol of Carnegie Mellon University, was named for the first president of the Carnegie Technical Schools, Arthur Hamerschlag. This was one of the original Carnegie Tech buildings designed by Palmer and Hornbostel, whose campus design has been followed surprisingly faithfully by succeeding generations of architects. It is perfectly positioned for a view down the Mall that captures the Cathedral of Learning, centerpiece and symbol of Pitt, looming in the background.

    With Oakland in the background
    With the Cathedral of Learning
    Through the trees

  • Chapel, Chatham University

    Chapel

    Old Pa Pitt happened to notice that there were very few pictures in Wikimedia Commons of Chatham University, one of the most beautiful college campuses in Pittsburgh or anywhere. That omission had to be rectified. There are now thirty-two more good pictures in the Chatham University category, and we’ll be seeing many of them in the coming days. This is the chapel, a fine Colonial-revival building from 1940.

    Spire
    From a distance

    On city planning maps, Chatham is in Squirrel Hill. The University calls this the Shadyside campus. We put it in both categories.

  • The Colonnade, Oakland

    The Colonnade

    This small apartment building on Centre Avenue is named for its most obvious and distinctive feature: a two-storey Doric colonnade that has just been freshly painted.

    Addendum: According to the city architectural inventory (PDF), the Colonnade was built in 1907.

    Corner view

  • Renaissance Commercial Building, Mount Oliver

    215 and 217 Brownsville Road

    An exceptionally elegant pair of storefronts with apartments above in the main business strip of Mount Oliver. Enlarge the picture and enjoy the Renaissance details.

  • Young Men and Women’s Hebrew Association, Oakland

    Another of Benno Janssen’s imposing clubs. We have seen this building from the front before; this corner view gives us an impression of the scale of the whole structure. It is now Bellefield Hall of the University of Pittsburgh.

  • Masonic Temple, Oakland

    Masonic Temple

    Another magnificent clubhouse by Benno Janssen; it is now Alumni Hall of the University of Pittsburgh.

    Masonic Temple

  • Pittsburgh Athletic Association

    One of Benno Janssen’s masterpieces; here we see it from the Cathedral of Learning grounds.