Tag: Flemish Architecture

  • A Flemish Row in Shadyside

    A Flemish row in Shadyside

    This row of houses on Howe Street has a distinctly Dutch or Flemish look. The Flemish style is not unknown in Pittsburgh, but it is rare to see a row of five houses in that style at once. (For another example of multiple Flemish houses, see the Osterling row in Brighton Heights.)

    5524 Howe Street

    This house, like many in Shadyside, has had part of its basement turned into a garage, with a steep driveway dug out of the front yard.

    Porch

    It is delightful to see that the intricate woodwork on the front porch has been preserved.

    5524
    Gable with iron decorations

    The angles and curves that make the gable look so Antverpian are made of iron or steel, as we can tell by one rusted section:

    Rusted metalwork

    This makes us suspect that perhaps three of the other houses in the row might have had similar decorations, removed when they rusted too much to repair.

    5529 and 5526 Howe Street
    5530
    5532
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

    This house, however, was clearly meant to show off its stones without additional adornment, except for the usual decorative utility-cable swags.

  • Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children, Oakland

    Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children

    George S. Orth was the architect of this palace of education, which was finished in 1894. It’s a little bit Flemish Renaissance, with eye-catching horizontal stripes and Rundbogenstil eyebrows over the arches.

    Front of the school
    Entrance arcade
  • Three Flemish Houses by Frederick Osterling, Brighton Heights

    Osterling houses on California Avenue

    This trio of Flemish-style houses is one of the most remarkable features of the Brighton Heights neighborhood. Frederick Osterling lived in Brighton Heights and designed several houses worth seeing there; these from about 1900 were beautifully restored as the “Osterling flats” a few years ago.

    Center house
    All three houses
  • Elliott–Fownes House, Highland Park

    Mansion on Highland Avenue

    Flemish Renaissance is not the most common style in Pittsburgh; this is certainly one of our most splendid examples of it. It is one of the surviving millionaires’ mansions on Highland Avenue. Father Pitt’s identification of it as the Elliott–Fownes house is based on two sources. The application for the neighborhood’s historic-district designation in the National Register of Historic Places mentions it as the home of “machine politician Robert Elliott”; a 1912 book has Henry C. Fownes, founder of the Oakmont Country Club, at this address.

    Robert Elliott house
    Henry C. Fownes house