Tag: Modernist Architecture

  • St. Joseph’s Church and School, Mount Oliver

    Front of St. Joseph’s Church

    St. Joseph’s was an old German parish in Mount Oliver—the part of Mount Oliver that became a city neighborhood, not the adjacent borough of the same name. The land for the church was bought before the Civil War, but the war interrupted the plans, and instead of a church the hastily erected Fort Jones (named for B. F. Jones of Jones & Laughlin) went up on this hilltop to keep the Confederates out of Pittsburgh. Apparently it worked, because you hardly ever see Confederate cavalry riding through Mount Oliver. After the war, the cornerstone of the church was laid in 1868, and the church was dedicated in 1870.

    In 1951, the old church burned down, which was a sad blow to the neighborhood—but it made way for this fine building, which was dedicated in 1953. The Catholic congregation left the building in 2005, but the current owners have kept it from falling down.1

    St. Joseph’s Church and rectory

    Update: Once again, all it took was publishing the pictures, and the information came in. The architects of the rebuilding were Marlier & Johnstone,2 who at about the same time designed St. Henry’s nearby in Arlington. What is even more interesting is that the old church is not entirely gone. It appears that, in the picture above, the side wall and transept, where you see the arched windows, are from the burned-out original church—but with the new construction so skillfully worked around it that old Pa Pitt had not even realized that part of the church was 85 years older than the rest.

    Porte Cochere

    The most striking feature of the building is this broad-arched porte cochère, with a long drive making the otherwise steep ascent from Ormsby Street easy.

    St. Joseph’s Church
    St. Joseph’s Church
    Rectory

    The rectory, built in 1889, is a well-preserved example of Second Empire architecture. Even the decorative ironwork railing on the tower is still intact.

    Rectory
    Ironwork on the tower
    Rectory
    St. Joseph’s School

    The school is neglected. In 2011, the old school, part of which dated to the 1870s, burned in a spectacular fire. The part that is left probably dates from the 1920s, with a postwar addition in the 1950s or 1960s.

    St. Joseph’s School
    St. Joseph’s School
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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  • United Steelworkers Building

    United Steelworkers building

    It occurred to old Pa Pitt this afternoon that he had never seen a complete picture of the front of this building. It took several photographs and some technical fussing to get the composite picture above, but here you are.

    Entrance
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    We also have pictures of the building from Mount Washington and from Gateway Center Park, as well as pictures of the base of the building.


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  • Building the Tower at PNC Plaza

    Early construction on the Tower at PNC Plaza

    The Tower at PNC Plaza will be ten years old this year. It occurred to Father Pitt that he had enough pictures in his collection to make up a visual story of the construction of the building, so here they are. Above, the progress as of February 18, 2014.

    Before topping out

    June 27, 2014, before the construction of the cap began.

    In August, 2014

    August 29, 2014.

    In early March, 2015

    March 2, 2015.

    Mid-March

    March 10, 2015, with bonus bus coming toward you.

    On St. Patrick’s Day, 2015

    March 17, 2015.

    June 13

    June 13, 2015.

    September 10, 2015

    September 10, 2015, just a few weeks before opening.

    November 12, 2020

    The completed tower on November 12, 2020.


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  • Three and Two Gateway Center

    Three and Two Gateway Center

    Three and Two Gateway Center seen from Gateway Center Park.

    Three Gateway Center

    Three Gateway Center.

    Three and Two Gateway Center

    A wintry view with silhouettes of bare trees.

    Three Gateway Center
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    Three Gateway Center seen from Forbes Avenue near the Diamond.


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  • Westinghouse Building

    Westinghouse Building

    The Westinghouse Building (now known by its street address, Eleven Stanwix) was designed by Harrison & Abramovitz, who completely changed Pittsburgh’s skyline in the years between the Second World War and the Postmodernist era of the 1980s.

    Entrance

    Years ago old Pa Pitt said that the building reminded him of two Mies van der Rohe buildings stacked one on top of another. The building has a Miesian colonnaded porch, but there is an essential difference, and the difference is in favor of Mies.

    Colonnaded porch

    In a Mies building, the porch creates a useful space that is a transition between outside and inside. You can set up tables on the porch if you like, and they will be out of the weather. People caught in a storm can run to the porch and be sheltered until security chases them back out into the rain. But here the porch is shallow and nearly useless. It does not provide shelter, and the space between the columns and the building is so tight that it eliminates the possibility of using the porch for much. The tables above are pleasant on a clear day, but they are exposed to the weather, and you would not want to sit there in the rain.

    Porch

    In fact, as insulting as it is to say this to a pair of distinguished modernists like Harrison & Abramovitz, this porch is merely decorative.

    Westinghouse Building

    We also have pictures of the Westinghouse building from Mount Washington, and from the Monongahela River.

  • United Steelworkers Building

    Base of the United Steelworkers Building

    The “diagrid” construction of the United Steelworkers Building (originally the IBM Building) is unusual, both from an aesthetic and from an engineering standpoint. The grid is not just decorative: it holds up the building from the outside. The piers on which all that weight rests are dramatic from close up. The architects were Curtis and Davis of New Orleans; as far as old Pa Pitt knows, this is their only building in Pittsburgh.

    United Steelworkers Building
    One pier of the United Steelworkers Building
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    More pictures of the United Steelworkers Building from Gateway Center Park, from the Boulevard of the Allies, and from across the river.

  • St. Henry Church, Arlington

    St. Henry Church, Arlington

    St. Henry Church has been abandoned for years, and it is slowly rotting away. Yet the neighborhood still remembers it as a point of pride: when Father Pitt was taking pictures along Arlington Avenue the other day, some locals stopped to talk and immediately asked, “Did you see our church?”

    West front

    And, of course, our utility cables.

    St. Henry was designed by Marlier & Johnstone and built in 1952, when the neighborhood was thriving.

    West front

    Each of those squares had a symbolic relief at its center, with a big metal cross in the middle of the façade. Those have all been taken away, because when Catholics abandon a building, they generally preserve whatever is unique and valuable about it and place it in another parish if possible. It does leave the building looking stripped, but we can understand the impulse.

    Entrance

    The entrance is sharply drawn in a style that flavors modern with just a bit of late Art Deco.

    Cupola

    An abstract cross-topped cupola.

    St. Henry Church

    An exhibition of utility cables.

    Rectory

    The rectory is older than the church; it is hard to guess the age of it, and it has been added to in various eras and various styles.

    Dormer
    Lintel
    Rectory
    Rectory
    School
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    The school next to the church has been abandoned twice. It was a public primary school for a while after the parochial school closed, but the public school closed a few years ago.

  • Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania Western Headquarters Building

    Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania Western Headquarters Building

    Dowler & Dowler, father-and-son architects, designed this building for the Bell System’s western headquarters in Pennsylvania. We have seen the building from this angle before, but we have not seen it with a bus coming toward you, which is always an improvement.

    Wall detail
    Porch

    The Stanwix Street front has a Miesian colonnaded porch, with a cheerful abstract mosaic ceiling.

    Window

    Those cheerful square polka dots also show up in other parts of the building.

    Cornerstone dated 1956

    The cornerstone, with its late-Art-Deco lettering and date.

    Bell emblem
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    The Bell System emblem.

    More pictures of the building, including the unique clock and globe (unfortunately out of order).

  • St. Anne’s Church, Castle Shannon

    St. Anne’s Church

    Edward J. Schulte was a master of the modern in ecclesiastical architecture. Wherever he went, all over the United States, he left churches that were uncompromisingly modern in their details, but also uncompromisingly traditional in their adaptation to Christian worship. St. Anne’s, which was finished in 1962, is a fine example of his work.

    Date stone
    A date stone on the grounds.

    The details are modern, but the form of the church is perfectly adapted to the ancient Christian liturgy. Too many modern architects expected the liturgy to adapt to the building, but Mr. Schulte obviously knew Christian tradition.

    We might point to the baptistery as an illustration of what we mean.

    Baptistery of St. Anne’s

    It’s a strikingly modern building, bang up to date for the Kennedy administration. But in its form and position it reminds us of…

    Baptistery of Neon

    …the Baptistery of Neon in Ravenna, seen here in a photograph from A History of Architecture in Italy by Charles A. Cummings (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1901). Built in the late 300s or early 400s, it was originally an extension of a large basilica, just like this baptistery. The one in Ravenna is one of the oldest Christian buildings still standing; Mr. Schulte reached right back to Roman imperial days to find his inspiration.

    St. Anne’s with baptistery
    The church and tower

    The most striking feature of the church is a detached bell tower more than a hundred feet high.

    Philip Murray tower
    Philip Murray tower

    The tower was donated by the United Steelworkers of America in honor of Philip Murray, the union’s first president. St. Anne’s was his home parish, and he is buried in St. Anne’s Cemetery.

    This tower is dedicated to the memory of Philip Murray by theUnited Steelworkers of America, November 9, 1962
    Relief of St. Anne and St. Mary and inscription

    A relief of St. Anne and St. Mary is accompanied by a quotation from Psalm 44 in the Vulgate numbering (Psalm 45 in the numbering used in Protestant and newer Catholic Bibles).

    Base of the tower
    St. Anne
    St. Anne and St. Mary
    Base of the tower
    Base from the side
    Tower from the side
    Top of the tower with cross
    The west front of the church

    The (liturgical) west front of the church1 is a balaced composition in geometry and symbolism.

    West front
    St. Anne’s Church

    Some roof work was going on when old Pa Pitt visited. (Update: A parishioner informs us that the work was in the basement, including an elevator, which is doubtless why we saw workers on the roof.)

    St. Anne’s convent entrance

    The entrance to the convent.

    St. Anne’s Church
    St. Anne’s through a trellis
    Side entrance
    Side entrance
    Window
    Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
    1. In traditional churches, the altar end is always referred to as “east,” even when it is not in the east by the compass. The end opposite the altar, where the main entrance is traditionally placed, is thus the west, and if—as in this case—the compass says the west front faces northeast, then the compass is entitled to its opinion. ↩︎
  • Scheibler Apartment Building in Highland Park Condemned

    936 Mellon Street

    After years of neglect and decay, this apartment building in the otherwise prosperous neighborhood of Highland Park is finally condemned.

    Condemnation sticker

    And it will be a tragedy to lose it, because it is an extraordinary work by an extraordinary architect.

    Frederick Scheibler is possibly the most-talked-about architect Pittsburgh ever produced, and this building—put up in 1906 for Mary M. Coleman—marks a turning point in Scheibler’s style, according to his biographer Martin Aurand. “The facade departs from precedent, however, in the sheer strength of its massing, and in its near total lack of common domestic imagery—even a cornice.… There is virtually no exterior ornament at all. The Coleman facade continues a process of abstraction begun at the Linwood [in North Point Breeze], but the leap forward in Scheibler’s developing style is sudden.”1

    Coleman apartments

    Considering the value of real estate in Highland Park right now, restoring this building should be not only public-spirited but also profitable. Is any ambitious developer willing to take it on? That blue sticker isn’t necessarily a death sentence: it will be removed if the dangerous conditions are remediated. To make it easier for you, Scheibler’s original drawings for this building are preserved in the Architecture Archive at Carnegie Mellon, so there need be no guesswork in the restoration.

    936 Mellon Street, balconies
    Balconies
    Balcony canopy
    Upper balcony
    Steps and entrance
    Entrance
    936 Mellon Street
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    1. Martin Aurand, The Progressive Architecture of Frederick G. Scheibler, Jr., p. 42 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994). ↩︎