Tag: Convents

  • St. James Convent, Sewickley

    St. James Convent

    Even though it is on the grounds of a parish that is still open, with a school that is still open, this glorious Second Empire building is abandoned and crumbling, with scraggly Trees of Heaven—the badge of abandonment—taking root all around it. In its current state it looks like a drawing by Charles Addams.

    St. James Convent
    Roof woodwork
    Close-up of some woodwork
    Dormer
    Dormer from the side
    Dormer from the front
    Different dormer from the front
    St. James Convent
    St. James Convent
    St. James Convent
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
  • St. Scholastica’s Convent, Aspinwall

    St. Scholastica’s Convent

    Update: The architect was Edward Weber, one of our most distinguished ecclesiastical architects. You might say he wrote the book on Catholic Church Buildings, and this one is illustrated in it. We keep the original article below, with its incorrect speculations, because Father Pitt likes to emphasize his own fallibility.


    Old Pa Pitt does not definitely know who designed this old convent (now a “ministry center”), but he would not be at all surprised to learn that it was Aspinwall’s own resident big-time architect Frederick Sauer, who could have walked to this site from his house in five minutes, and who was a known lover of yellow brick like this.

    Inscription: “St. Scholastica’s Convent”
    St. Scholastica’s Convent
    St. Scholastica’s Convent
  • St. Matthew’s Convent, South Side

    St. Matthew’s Convent

    St. Matthew’s was a Slovak congregation; you can read the whole history of the parish up to 1955 in its golden-jubilee book at the Historic Pittsburgh site. The church closed some time ago and was converted to apartments; the convent is also secular now, but the front is beautifully maintained. It was built in 1926, and the architect was Albert F. Link. It’s a good example of Link’s style: he streamlines and modernizes a historical style—Jacobean here—and creates something that harmonizes well with the older church next door but still definitely belongs to our modern age of the 1920s.

    Front Door
    St. Matthew’s Convent
  • St. Michael’s Convent and Orphan Asylum, South Side Slopes

    St. Michael’s Convent and Orphan Asylum

    The line between painted and unpainted on this long building is an artifact of its history. For most of its life this building was divided in two parts: the painted part was the convent, and the unpainted part the orphan asylum. More recently it has been a Franciscan retreat center known as the Burning Bush House of Prayer, whose somewhat archaic site tells us that the building was put up “in three stages, from 1887 to 1889.”

    Oblique view
  • St. George’s Convent, Allentown

    St. George’s convent

    German influence was strong in the German neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, and the particular German variant of Romanesque called the Rundbogenstil—round-arch style—can be discerned in many of our buildings. Few offer it in as ostentatiously German a form as this one, which was the convent for St. George’s parish school in Allentown. It seems to old Pa Pitt that the rhythm of the front is just about perfect, and the three elaborate double arches place the proper emphasis on the upstairs chapel.

    The side was not really meant to be seen, so it is almost completely undecorated.

    Convent

    Addendum: The convent was built in about 1915; the architect was Herman J. Lang, who was also the architect of the church.

  • Holy Rosary Convent, Homewood

    Holy Rosary Convent

    Like the rectory behind it, this is a simple and dignified Renaissance palace that sets off the flamboyant Gothic of Holy Rosary Church.

  • St. Canice Church, Knoxville

    Tower

    St. Canice is an unusual Romanesque church that closed in 2005. Since then it has sat vacant. It was sold to Lion of Judah Church in 2012, but it seems nothing came of the plans to refurbish the building, and as it ages it will only get more expensive to refurbish. Churches are hard to find alternate uses for, and Knoxville is not a neighborhood where trendy loft apartments—the only consistently profitable use Pittsburghers have found for old church buildings—would sell. This is an endangered landmark.

    St. Canice

    It took eleven separate photographs to make this composite of the Orchard Place front of the church. Except for the inevitable distortion of the tower, this is a very close approximation of the way the architects imagined these buildings. The main Romanesque church was built in 1894, according to this city architectural inventory (PDF); the Gothic chapel additions were built in 1928 and 1932.

    Entrance
    St. Canice

    Like many Catholic churches in Pittsburgh, St. Canice was not just a church: it was a whole village, forming the heart of a community. There was a school, and a convent for the sisters who taught for the school, and a rectory for the priests who served in the church. The tragedy of decaying communities like this is that, at a certain point, it becomes too expensive to maintain the church; but, once the heart is ripped out, the decay is immeasurably accelerated.

    The rectory and convent are in good shape.

    Rectory

    The rectory, built in 1928. Addendum: The rectory was designed by William P. Hutchins.

    Convent

    The convent, built in 1913 with additions in 1930. Addendum: The original 1913 convent was designed by A. F. Link.1

    School

    The school, on the other hand, is half-swallowed by jungle. It was repurposed as Hilltop Catholic High School for a while, and more modern buildings (from 1960) are behind this entrance; but the school has been abandoned for years, and will eventually have to be demolished. It was bought by a Baptist church at the same time St. Canice Church was bought by Lion of Judah, but the church seems not to have been able to do anything with the buildings.

    Entrance to the school
    Gothic details
    1. Source: The Construction Record, September 13, 1913: “Architect A. F. Link, 407 N. Craig street is taking bids on erecting a two-story brick convent on Knox avenue and Orchard street, Knoxville, for St. Canice’s Roman Catholic Congregation.” ↩︎