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Three Gateway Center from Forbes Avenue
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A Kinder, Gentler Brutalism
Brutalism is the school of modernist architecture that uses raw building materials, especially concrete, as its main aesthetic statement. Father Pitt is not a great lover of the style, but some Brutalist buildings work better than others. The Hillman Library at the University of Pittsburgh has a cool elegance lacking in many other Brutalist buildings. The vertical window bays give us shading that keeps the wall from becoming monotonous, and they also flood the interior with natural light.
It is very hard to explain who designed this building. Wikipedia says, “Design of Hillman Library was led by Celli-Flynn and Associates who served as coordinating architects. Kuhn, Newcomer & Valentour served as associated architects with Harrison & Abramovitz acting as consulting architects to the university. Dolores Miller and Associates consulted on the interior design, and Keyes Metcalf served as a library consultant.”
An architect might be able to sort out the nuances of coordinating, associated, and consulting. Harrison & Abramovitz gave us numerous skyscrapers downtown, but Wikipedia adds that “In 1996, architect Celli-Flynn and Associates and Kuhn, Newcomer & Valentour won the Timeless Award for Enduring Design from the Pittsburgh chapter of the American Institute of Architects for its design of Hillman Library.” This suggests that Harrison & Abramovitz really were consultants rather than responsible for the design; perhaps their role was to say, “No, you can’t do that, or it will fall down.”
Kuhn, Newcomer & Valentour still exists as “DRAW Collective,” based in Mt. Lebanon. Celli-Flynn and Associates was absorbed into Buchart Horn Architects, based in York, but maintaining the staff and office of the Pittsburgh company. It is an interesting commentary on architectural trends that both firms’ recent projects, as displayed on their Web sites, lean toward a timid neoneoclassicism. It does not have the courage to break completely with modernist dogmas and go back to Vitruvius, but neither does it have the daring to invent its own forms and make something new. We get the impression that the clients will be satisfied—but satisfied as in “Yeah, it’s okay,” not satisfied as in “They gave me a masterpiece.”
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Litchfield Towers from Forbes Avenue
To old Pa Pitt’s eyes, International Style architecture always looks best in black and white. Indeed, he has sometimes wondered how much the architects were subconsciously influenced by the desire to make a building that looked good in a photograph.
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Schenley Quad, Oakland
Originally the Schenley Apartments, but now Schenley High School has been turned into apartments as the Schenley Apartments, so using the original name would be confusing. This huge complex was built in 1922 as luxury apartments to go with the Hotel Schenley. The architect was Henry Hornbostel, with the collaboration of Rutan & Russell, the original architects of the hotel. In 1955 the University of Pittsburgh bought the Schenley Apartments (for less than they had cost to build in 1922), and since then the buildings have been Pitt dormitories. Above, we see the complex from the grounds of Soldiers and Sailors Hall; below, the steps up from Forbes Avenue.
Since we have a large number of pictures, we’ll put most of them behind a “Read more” link to avoid weighing down the main page of the site.
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Alumni House, Carnegie Mellon University
A relic from the days when this part of Squirrel Hill was a wealthy exurb full of houses like this. Enlarge the picture and note the fine cornice woodwork along the roofline.
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Italian Sons and Daughters of America Building
A streamlined Art Deco classicism makes this building stand out on its corner of Wood Street and Forbes Avenue. Its decorative flourishes, though minimal, were nevertheless too embarrassing for the modernist age, and for many years the building was wrapped in an orange metal shell. The metal panels came off in 2012, “to the spontaneous applause of passers-by,” according to the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation (PDF).
The building was put up in 1929; the architects were Hunting, Davis & Dunnells, whose successors, LLI Engineering, are still in business.
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Carnegie Institute
The titanic Carnegie Institute building was designed by Longfellow, Alden & Harlow, Andrew Carnegie’s favorite architects. Above: the Music Hall entrance. Below: the main building seen from the west, across Forbes Avenue.
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The Noble Quartet—The Complete Group
John Massey Rhind, Andrew Carnegie’s favorite sculptor, decorated the Carnegie Institute building with bronzes representing the Noble Quartet—science, art, music, and literature—to which the Institute was dedicated. At street level, each member of the quartet is represented by a portrait of one of its famous representatives. Above each statue, on the roof, is an allegorical group of female figures representing the abstract ideal. We have seen the pictures of the statues before, but since old Pa Pitt just recently took pictures of the allegorical groups, he thought it might be interesting to see everything together at once.
Science
Galileo.
Art
Michelangelo.
Music
Bach.
Literature
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Board of Public Education Building, Oakland
One of the many Italian Renaissance palaces in the monumental district of Oakland, this one—unlike many of the others—still serves its original purpose. It was designed by Ingham & Boyd and opened in 1938. Because of the street layout, the building is a large trapezoid with a courtyard garden. It is worth the time to pause and examine the details.
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Central Presbyterian Church, Uptown
This church in the Soho section of Uptown was built in the 1880s. It began as the Central Presbyterian Church; in 1897 it merged with First Presbyterian downtown and became the Central Chapel of the First Presbyterian Church. The style is typical Pittsburgh small-church Gothic. More recently this was the Corinthian Baptist Church, and although it is now boarded up, someone at least maintains the grounds.
This Kodak bridge camera has a very long Schneider lens, and in pictures at the far end we notice some vignetting if the background is plain enough. It could be corrected in the GIMP, but in this picture the vignetting adds to the artistic effect. How is that for an excuse for laziness?
