Tag: Gothic Architecture

  • Edgewood Borough Building

    Edgewood borough building

    Lake & Davidson were the architects of this rich building for the rich borough of Edgewood. In 1932, when it was dedicated, it was the subject of a photo feature in the Sun-Telegraph.

    The recently completed structure, which resembles a large, handsome residence, will be dedicated informally today and tomorrow. The committee desired a building for a community of self-governing citizens who regard the law as a positive civic expression rather than an agent of punitive repression.

    Consequently, Lake and Davidson, the architects, selected the domestic architecture of the law-abiding English. The Tudor style fulfills the conditions governing the design which required that many individual activities be housed. This style consistently permits the incorporation of happily rambling units into a decorative sequence.1

    Edgewood borough building
    Edgewood borough building

    When this building was put up in 1932, the Depression was hitting its stride, and prices for construction had fallen. A borough full of rich people could afford quite a luxurious municipal hall. “The building, moreover, was constructed at a time when prices were low enough to give this community double the value in materials.”

    Lantern

    These elaborate lanterns at the entrance are a good example of the materials the borough could afford.

    Lantern
    Dormers and tower
    Firehouse

    “A unique triumph of the building,” says that same Sun-Telly article, “is the concealment of the great, gaping doors necessary for the fire department, in the north wing at the rear.”

    Edgewood borough building
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS; Kodak EasyShare Max Z990.

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  • Belmar Christian Church (Baptist Temple Church), Homewood

    Belmar Christian Church

    Edwin V. Denick was the architect of this neat little corner-tower church, which was built in 1905.1 The current congregation, the Baptist Temple Church, keeps it scrupulously tidy. “We do what we can,” one member modestly told old Pa Pitt—modestly because the man had just spent hours cleaning inside.

    Parsonage and church

    Old maps show that the attached parsonage was built later than the church, but it was matched very well to the style and material of the main building.

    Parsonage
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.

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  • Epiphany Evangelical Lutheran Church, Lincoln–Lemington–Belmar

    Epiphany Evangelical Lutheran Church

    John Lewis Beatty, who gave us many fine churches throughout the city and suburbs, was a grand old man of Pittsburgh church architecture by the time he designed this church, built in 1928. Today the building belongs to Nabhi Christian Ministries, and it seems to be in very good hands.

    Epiphany Evangelical Lutheran Church
    Epiphany Evangelical Lutheran Church
    Entrance
    Epiphany Evangelical Lutheran Church
    Epiphany Evangelical Lutheran Church
    Epiphany Evangelical Lutheran Church
    Epiphany Evangelical Lutheran Church
    Sony Alpha 3000.

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  • Brookline Methodist Episcopal Church

    Brookline Methodist Episcopal Church

    We have seen this church before, but on a recent stroll up the Boulevard old Pa Pitt thought it looked beautiful in the sun, so here it is again. It now belongs to the Brookline Assembly of God, a vigorous congregation that keeps it up very well.

    Tower
    Window in the tower

  • The Chancery, Oakland

    Chancery with entarnce pillar

    Edward J. Weber designed this companion to St. Paul’s Cathedral, and he succeeded in the delicate balance of making the building individual and distinct while still making it fit comfortably in the cathedral complex.

    Cornerstone with date 1914

    The Chancery and the accompanying Synod Hall were built in 1914, as we can see from this elaborate blackletter cornerstone. Today, after extensive renovation and restoration, the Chancery building is the St. Paul Cathedral Center.

    Chancery
    Chancery
    Samsung Galaxy A15 5G with Open Camera.

    The architect Edward J. Weber was one of Pittsburgh’s most interesting contributions to ecclesiastical architecture, and his ideas are embodied in a book that you can find in a good scan in the Internet Archive:

    Catholic Church Buildings: Their Planning and Furnishing. By Edward Joseph Weber, A.A.I.A. New York: Joseph F. Wagner, 1927.

    It includes many illustrations, among them some of Weber’s own buildings, especially St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Wheeling.


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  • Calvary Methodist Episcopal Church, Allegheny West

    Calvary Methodist Church

    This church was finished in 1893; the architects were the Kansas City firm of Vrydagh & Shepard. Thomas B. Wolfe, a native of Sewickley Heights, was working in Kansas City for Vrydagh & Shepard, so it was natural that he should be the one sent to Pittsburgh to supervise the church. While it was under construction or shortly afterward, Martin Vrydagh decided to move to Pittsburgh and join Wolfe, founding the prolific partnership of Vrydaugh (in about 1899 he changed the spelling of his name) & Wolfe.

    Calvary Methodist Episcopal Church

    It took old Pa Pitt a while to figure all that out, because every Pittsburgh reference—including Father Pitt’s own sites and the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation plaque on the church—gave the name of the firm as Vrydaugh & Shepherd. Father Pitt began to get suspicious when he found that Web searches for “Vrydaugh & Shepherd” turned up this church and nothing else, so it was time to explore alternate spellings.

    Spire
    Tower with spire
    Smaller spire
    Detail of Gothic arches
    Calvary Methodist Church
    Kodak EasyShare Max Z990; Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR.

    We also have pictures of Calvary Church at night and in the snow.


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  • Saltsburg Presbyterian Church

    Saltsburg Presbyterian Church

    Built in 1874, this was the fourth church building put up by this congregation. Apparently this one proved adequate, because—

    Old postcard of Saltsburg Presbyterian Church

    —this old postcard from the Presbyterian Historical Society shows that very little has changed except for the replacement of the slate roof with metal. As a bonus, the church’s matinee-idol minister judges us through his pince-nez from an inset.

    Main entrance
    Corner entrance

    One minor change: the sloped roof over this little corner entrance has been replaced with a gable filled in with siding.

    Saltsburg Presbyterian Church
    Side entrance
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
  • Grace United Evangelical Church, Wilkinsburg

    Grace United Evangelical Church

    Kiehnel & Elliott were one of the few Pittsburgh firms to adopt early modern styles at the turn of the twentieth century. When they took on a church, however, they turned completely traditional, and it would be hard to point out anything about this neat little church that sets it apart from the work of other good but conventional architects of the time. This one was built in 1915, and it is a typical Pittsburgh corner-tower Protestant church. Today it is one of our dwindling number of black stone churches, and the soot of the decades gives it a kind of evening-dress dignity it would not have had when it was young.

    Entrance

    The church us beautifully kept by its current occupants, Victory Global Ministries, whose pastor disdains the pompous title “bishop” favored by many nondenominational ministers in favor of the original workaday meaning of the Greek ἐπίσκοπος: “Overseer.”

    Grace United Evangelical Church
    Tower
    Grace United Evangelical Church

    The vanishing of an early addition in the rear shows us something of the original color of the stone.

    Grace United Evangelical Church
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.

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  • First Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, Shadyside

    Inscription: Trinity Church, the First German Evangelical Lutheran Congregation

    The First German Evangelical Lutheran Church was founded in 1837, and it was downtown, or on the edge of downtown, at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue, until the commercial development of downtown Pittsburgh had scattered the congregation and made the land too valuable to keep. We can see from this building that the congregation had money to spend when the church moved to the East End. The architects were the Cleveland firm of Corbusier, Lenski & Foster (not that Le Corbusier, we should point out), who were much in demand as church designers, though this is the only one of their designs old Pa Pitt has found in Pittsburgh so far. By the time this church opened in 1928, the congregation was bilingual, with services in German and in English; so the new church was called Trinity Church.

    Entrance
    West Front
    Tower
    First Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church
    First Trinity
    First Trinity
    Lantern

    Not hidden under a bushel.

    Parsonage

    The parsonage was designed by the same architects and built at the same time as the church.

    Parsonage
    Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR.

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  • St. Mary Assumption Church, Lawrenceville

    St. Mary Assumption

    This church, built in 1955, belonged to a Slovenian parish in the little Slovenian enclave in Upper Lawrenceville. Father Pitt was not able to find the name of the architect, but he would be almost flabbergasted if it were not Ermes Brunettini, whose St. Ignatius de Loyola Church in Glendale shares so many very individual quirks that it seems almost like the same design adapted to a different site.

    Entrance

    Although the parish was suppressed, the church has found other uses, and neighbors told old Pa Pitt that they were happy to see it kept up well.

    Entrance
    Door pulls
    Lantern
    Cherub

    If Father Pitt’s guess about the architect is right, then he might as well guess that the carvings were done by the Oakmont sculptor Louis Vergobbi, who decorated St. Ignatius in a similar style.

    Foliage ornament
    Tower
    St. Mary Assumption
    Tower
    Rectory

    The parish school once stood between this rectory and the church, but it was demolished years ago and replaced with a parking lot.

    Parking lot with church behind it
    Rectory

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