Father Pitt

Tag: Classical Architecture

  • St. Clair Savings & Trust Co., Knoxville

    St. Clair Savings & Trust Co.

    An Art Deco interpretation of traditional Doric bank architecture, with the added interest of an unusual shape: the lot forces the structure into a triangle. This substantial building from 1931 was abandoned for a while; then it was briefly the Iglesia de Cristo León de Judá, before that congregation took over an old church a few blocks away; then it was abandoned again. Now it is a store with the delightfully appropriate name “Candy Safe Market.” The exterior is a feast of artistic details.

    Inscription

    The name comes from St. Clair Township, which originally included much of Allegheny County south of the Monongahela. Today the building is in the Knoxville neighborhood of Pittsburgh, right on the border with Mount Oliver borough.

    Frieze
    Griffins

    This pair of griffins over the entrance ought to be guarding a clock, and perhaps they were at some point; but the bronze decoration where the clock should be is fairly old, if it is not original. The banner with the name of the store is hanging over this sculpture, which is why we have to look at it from this angle: old Pa Pitt thought it would be discourteous to take down the banner just to get a better picture.

    Griffin
    Detail
    Ram’s head
    Medallion
    Rear

    One of the points of the triangle.

    Oblique view

  • Boggs Avenue School, Mount Washington

    A modest Renaissance palace designed by Sydney F. Heckert and built in 1925. It is now apartments.

    When the building was converted from school to residence, someone thought this treatment of the front entrances was a good idea. Someone was mistaken.

  • Wood Street Building (300 Sixth Avenue Building)

    Wood Street Building

    A Daniel Burnham design built for the McCreery & Company department store, this building opened in 1904. It originally had a classical base with a pair of arched entrances on Wood Street, but beginning in 1939 it had various alterations, so that nothing remains of the original Burnham design below the fourth floor. This was one of Burnham’s more minimalistic designs; in it we see how thin the wall can be between classicism and modernism.

    Below, an abstract composition with elements of this building reflected in Two PNC Plaza across the street.

    Reflections

  • Mausoleum & Son

    No one knows exactly what the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus looked like when it was intact. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the World, but today all that is left is a bit of rubble. The rough outlines are generally known, however, and the speculative reconstructions of it have been productive of more monumental architecture in Pittsburgh than perhaps any other classical building. At least half a dozen buildings in Pittsburgh were inspired by it: Soldiers & Sailors Hall, the Hall of Architecture at the Carnegie, Presbyterian Hospital, Allegheny General Hospital, the Gulf Building, and the Wilkins mausoleum in the Homewood Cemetery. Above is James Fergusson’s version of how it must have looked, and Fergusson’s was one of the most influential reconstructions. See if you can spot the resemblance with the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial by Henry Hornbostel:

  • Top of the Benedum-Trees Building

    Top of the Benedum-Trees Building

    The ornate cap of the Benedum-Trees Building, with the PPG Place Christmas tree poking its head into the picture. Enlarge the images to appreciate the wealth of carved detail.

    Benedum-Trees Building

  • Carnegie Library, Hill District Branch

    Carnegie Library, Hill District Branch

    Another elegant little branch library by Alden & Harlow. Although the branch library moved a short distance away to a larger modern building, this one was fortunately taken over by a mosque and is therefore still loved and kept up.

    Oblique view

  • Woolslair Public School, Bloomfield/Lawrenceville

    Woolslair Public School

    This fine Renaissance palace, built in 1897, was designed by Samuel T. McClaren. It sits on 40th Street at Liberty Avenue, where it is technically—according to city planning maps—in Bloomfield. Most Pittsburghers, however, would probably call this section of Bloomfield “Lawrenceville,” since it sticks like a thumb into lower Lawrenceville, and the Lawrenceville line runs along two edges of the school’s lot.

    For some reason the style of this building is listed as “Romanesque revival” wherever we find it mentioned on line. Old Pa Pitt will leave it up to his readers: is this building, with its egg-and-dart decorations, false balconies, and Trajanesque inscriptions, anything other than a Victorian interpretation of a Renaissance interpretation of classical architecture? Now, if you had said “Rundbogenstil,” Father Pitt might have accepted it, because he likes to say the word “Rundbogenstil.”

    Entrance
    Front
    Northern side

  • Allegheny County Courthouse and Frick Building

    Courthouse and Frick Building

    Taken on film in 1999. Note the bus coming toward you; apparently old Pa Pitt has been taking bus-coming-toward-you pictures for at least twenty-three years.

  • Truck Co. No. 50, Lafayette Hilltop

    Truck Co. No. 50, Lafayette Hilltop

    Update: Father Pitt regrets to say that this building has been demolished to make way for a much larger facility.

    An elegant little classical firehouse, still in use as a medic station, on Lafayette Avenue at the corner of Federal Street. It dates from before 1910 and after 1903, according to the Pittsburgh Historic Maps site.

    From Federal Street

  • Hebrew Institute, Hill

    Front of the Hebrew Institute

    In the early twentieth century, the Hill was Pittsburgh’s most diverse neighborhood, and in particular it was the main center of Jewish culture. A number of buildings survive from the Jewish community there, though they have all been turned to other uses. This one, for example, is now a “community engagement center” run by the University of Pittsburgh. But it was the original home of the Hebrew Institute, which moved to Squirrel Hill in 1944. It was a school that taught Hebrew language, literature, and culture to Jewish children. The style of the building is typical Pittsburgh School Classical, but the broken pediment above the entrance frames a Torah scroll.

    Broken pediment with Torah
    From the west
    Erected 5675–1915
    From the east

    Addendum: The architect, according to a 1914 issue of the Construction Record, was Walter S. Cohen, who had a thriving practice serving mostly Jewish clients. “Architect Walter S. Cohen, Oliver building, has plans nearly completed for a two-story brick and stone institute building for the Hebrew Institute of Pittsburgh, Wylie avenue and Green street, to be built at a cost of $30,000.”