A little modernistic apartment building whose details have been marred somewhat—the stock “picture windows” do it no favors. But enough remains that we can imagine the clean late-moderne look the architect was going for.
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Nellie Mae Apartments, Homewood
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Knott Manor, Hill District
Joseph Hoover’s firm designed this modernistic apartment house, which was planned in 1950. It was named for Dr. Paul A. Knott, a medical doctor on the Hill who went into the landlording business. Except for the windows of one apartment, which were recently replaced, the building still stands very much as the architect designed it.
“Signatures Make Building Reality,” New Pittsburgh Courier, September 2, 1950, p. 6. Note in the drawing how much the architect was relying on the grid patterns of the windows for the effect of the front. That is precisely the detail that vanishes when those windows are replaced. “God is in the details,” as Mr. Mies said, and that is especially true of a modernist building like this, where the details are few and therefore chosen with care.
Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR.
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Modernistic Apartment Building in Regent Square
This little box of apartments was probably built in the 1940s. It relies on contrasting bricks for its simple and effective decoration. Old Pa Pitt thinks those small windows must make the stairwell a dim place; but otherwise it is an attractive building that would have been even more attractive with the original windows, although the replacements are at least the right size for the holes in the wall.
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS. Regent Square is famous for being a single neighborhood divided among four municipalities. This building is just inside Pittsburgh city limits; the border with Wilkinsburg cuts a diagonal path through the neighborhood just a few yards to the southeast, merrily bisecting buildings as it goes.
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Columbia Hospital, Wilkinsburg
Columbia Hospital merged with Pittsburgh Hospital and East Suburban General in Monroeville to form Forbes Health System. The location in Wilkinsburg closed some years ago, but unlike some other large buildings in Wilkinsburg, this complex found new uses. The largest part is a nursing home, and several other businesses and services occupy smaller sections.
The original hospital buildings were designed by John Lewis Beatty, whom we have met before mostly as a designer of Protestant churches. They are faced with a very attractive cinnamon brick that is actually made up of randomly assorted but related shades.
If we walk around to the forgotten back alley behind the hospital, we discover the old abandoned emergency entrance. We can also see some more of the older buildings in the complex.
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS; Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR. In 1956, the hospital announced a big new addition and planned to raise a million and a half to pay for it. The architects were Prack & Prack, longtime specialists in large industrial and institutional buildings.
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Rowhouses by Frederick Scheibler, Homewood
These houses were built in 1910, and nothing like their brisk modernity had been seen in Pittsburgh. Frederick Scheibler was our most adventurous modernist in those days, and these would have been approved by the Bauhaus ten or twenty years later.
The two houses on the upper end of the upper row have been kept in near-original condition, though they are in less than perfect shape.
In the rest of the row, different ownerships have sent the houses careening off in various directions.
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS. Like many architects of terraces like these, Scheibler repeated this design in multiple locations. Apparently both Scheibler and his clients considered the design a success. We’ll be seeing more of these little houses.
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Saint Joseph School, Manchester
Edward J. Hergenroeder, who prospered in the years after the Second World War as a designer of Catholic schools and churches, was the architect of this handsome little modernist school for the German parish of St. Joseph.1 It is in use as coworking space now, so it will remain when St. Joseph’s Church is demolished.
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS. The long side of the building faced North Franklin Street, which has since been pedestrianized.
- “Tremendous Building Program Looms in Pittsburgh Diocese,” Pittsburgh Catholic, March 28, 1946, p. 1. “St. Joseph’s, Rev. Alvin W. Forney, pastor: New school; E. J. Hergenroeder, architect; $90,000.” ↩︎
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Homestead Senior High School
This snappy-looking modernistic school was designed by Button & McLean (Lamont H. Button and Paul F. McLean), who were taking bids in November of 1938.1 It was later bought by the Steel Valley Council of Governments, an association of boroughs and cities in the Mon Valley, which has turned it into a shop where you can take your humans to have them serviced.
When old Pa Pitt took these pictures, there was a band rehearsing somewhere in the building that included a pretty good vibraphone player.
Fukifilm FinePix HS20EXR. - Proposals, Pittsburgh Press, November 30, 1938, p. 32. “Copies of plans, specifications and other contract documents will be on file and open to public inspection at the offices of the Architects, 119 East Montgomery Avenue, North Side, Pittsburgh, Pa.…” From many other listings we know that 119 East Montgomery Avenue—a street that no longer exists—was the office of Button & McLean. ↩︎
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IBM Building, Allegheny Center
This very Miesian building was designed in Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s firm after Mr. Mies had died, which, as old Pa Pitt has said before, explains how the architect, Bruno P. Conterato, got away with making it a white box on stilts instead of a black box on stilts. Since IBM left, it has been known as Four Allegheny Center.
Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
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St. Colman Church, Turtle Creek
This was the last of the five (out of seven) churches old Pa Pitt managed to visit during the open house for St. Joseph the Worker Parish, seven of whose eight churches are closing this month. Because he got there just as the open house was winding up, Father Pitt didn’t get as many pictures as of the other churches, but the ones he did get give a good impression of what the church is like. They also show that it needs some maintenance work, which would probably be expensive.
Addendum: The architect was Pittsburgh-born, Philadelphia-based Harold Wagoner, with Angel Chorne as associate.
Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS. It’s always sad to see a church close. However, there is very good news for St. Colman’s School, a 1920s masterpiece by Link, Weber & Bowers. It is undergoing a thorough and expensive restoration for a second life. We took a few pictures of the school on the same visit.
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Madonna del Castello Church, Swissvale
The first reaction of most visitors to Madonna del Castello is astonishment that such a thing even exists. The sanctuary hovers over the parking lot on spindly legs like some giant beetle ready to march out into the streets of Swissvale. It is beautiful, impressive, and a little terrifying.
Many more pictures…
