Father Pitt

Tag: Relief

  • Art Deco Planter at County Airport

    Two Art Deco planters flank the entrance to the Allegheny County Airport terminal. They bear plaques emblematic of aviation: planes, propellers, and eagles.

  • 311 and 321 First Avenue

    These two buildings are nearly identical, but differ in their decorative details. The cherubs on the pilaster capitals of number 321 are especially notable.

  • Bronze Doors on the Carnegie Institute Building

    It took tons of beautifully cast bronze to make the grand entrances on the original Carnegie Institute building, as opposed to the modern entrance in the Scaife Galleries addition, which takes a bunch of glass doors ordered from a catalogue.

  • Romanesque Capital on the Music Building

    The Music Building at the University of Pittsburgh was originally a house designed by Longfellow, Alden & Harlow for the pastor of the Bellefield Presbyterian Church across the street. It has been expanded for institutional use, but with some effort made to keep the expansion in sympathy with the original house.

  • More Art Deco in Mount Lebanon

    Though it currently houses a real-estate agency, the terra-cotta reliefs tell us that this was built as a medical office. The splendid Art Deco eagle made it a very patriotic medical office.

  • Art Deco Vegetation

    A decorative panel on a building on Forbes Avenue seems to capture the spirit of medieval decoration filtered through an Art Deco lens.

  • Carved Stoop on the South Side

    Doors and doorframes often have elaborate carvings on the South Side, but not many stoops have elaborate decorations like these, either carved or stamped into the concrete.

  • Reliefs on the City-County Building

    On the left, the arms of Allegheny County; on the right, the arms of the City of Pittsburgh.

    Allegheny County.

    Pittsburgh.

    Addendum: The sculptures are by Charles Keck, who also worked with architect Henry Hornbostel on numerous other buildings, including Soldiers and Sailors Hall.

  • Terra Cotta on the Kaufmann’s Building

    The Kaufmann’s building at Fifth and Smithfield was designed by Benno Janssen, who gave it a facing of ornate terra-cotta tiles. Compare these decorations to the similar ones on Janssen’s earlier Buhl Building farther down Fifth Avenue.

  • Grotesque Face on Fifth Avenue

    This small piece of the old façade sticks up over the undistinguished tiles that cover the rest of this Fifth Avenue building. It must have been quite a façade when we could see the rest of it.