Father Pitt

Tag: Renaissance Architecture

  • Miller House, Shadyside

    Miller house

    This Renaissance palace was designed for Rachel and Mortimer Miller by Maximilian Nirdlinger, whose name is at the top of old Pa Pitt’s list of architects whose names are the most fun to say.1 It was built in 1904, when Nirdlinger was still young; with eye-catching but respectable designs like this one, he established himself as a favorite house designer among the Social Register set.

    Miller house
    Miller house
    Miller house
    Miller house
    Front entrance to the Miller house
    Copper cornice with Greek key
    Terra-cotta shield on the Miller house
    Windows with terra-cotta ornaments
    Terra cotta
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS; Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR.
    1. Pittsburg Press, February 2, 1904, p. 12. “A $30,000 residence will be erected on Morewood avenue, Twentieth ward. The plans for it have just been completed by Architect M. Nirdlinger for Mortimer C. Miller. The structure will be three stories high of ornamental brick with terra cotta trimmings.” The land is shown on plat maps as owned by Rachel McM. Miller. ↩︎
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  • Old Braddock Post Office

    Old Braddock post office

    Though the post office moved a few blocks away to an undistinguished modern building, this extravagant Beaux-Arts palace has fortunately been preserved.

    Entrance to the old Braddock post office
    Segmental pediment
    Inscription and crest
    Crest with cartouche
    Old Braddock post office

  • Telephone Exchange, Allegheny Center

    “Bell Telephone” inscription
    Telephone exchange

    Not only is this elegant palace of switching one of the few buildings left in Allegheny Center from before the great urban renewal of the 1960s, but it also preserves a memory of the extinct street layout of old Allegheny.

    Street signs: East Diamond Street, East Montgomery Avenue

    The architect was probably James Windrim of Philadelphia, who did most of the work for Bell of Pennsylvania in the first quarter of the twentieth century. His mission was to make these necessary industrial buildings ornaments to their neighborhoods, so that the telephone company would not face too much opposition. In the nineteenth century, it had been usual to put street signs on the corners of buildings; it was already a bit old-fashioned by the time this exchange was built, but several of the old Bell Telephone exchanges have them, and we suppose it was another way of making them seem like good neighborhood citizens. These streets no longer exist; the quarter-loop drive that turns around this corner is known as Montgomery Place.

    Montgomery Avenue façade
    Telephone exchange
    Telephone exchange
    Doorway
    Doorway
    Bracket
    Telephone exchange from North Commons
    Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
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  • Park Place School

    Park Place School

    For some reason, Park Place is one of those neighborhoods that have no official existence on city planning maps. It is counted as part of Point Breeze South, but there is a considerable gap between the rest of Point Breeze South and Park Place, which slops over into Wilkinsburg, thus becoming one of the rare neighborhoods that ignore city boundaries. In fact the border goes through a number of buildings and houses.

    Ellsworth Dean was the architect of this Renaissance palace of education, which was built in 1903. It is now an “Environmental Charter School.” We assume that means children can have the unique experience of learning in an environment. (Actually, old Pa Pitt just looked up the school’s Web site, and now he is wishing there had been such things as Environmental Charter Schools when he was a tot back in pre-Revolutionary days.)

    Park Place School
    Park Place School
    Entrance to the Park Place School
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS; Sony Alpha 3000.
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  • Godfrey Stengel House, Schenley Farms

    Godfrey Stengel house at 4136 Bigelow Boulevard

    Built in 1913, this house is a minor landmark of early modernism in Pittsburgh. Kiehnel & Elliott were the architects, and Richard Kiehnel had a thoroughly German architectural education. He applied the latest Jugendstil ideas of decoration, with a little Prairie Style thrown in, to the forms that were popular in Pittsburgh—like the standard three-storey Renaissance palace that is the basis of this house. The combination was a winner: clients got something that looked bracingly up to date, but didn’t make their neighbors hate them.

    Godfrey Stengel house at 4136 Bigelow Boulevard
    Art-glass window
    Godfrey Stengel house at 4136 Bigelow Boulevard
    Kodak EasyShare Max Z990.
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  • Ira Bixler House, Schenley Farms

    Ira L. Bixler house at 209 Tennyson Avenue

    This Renaissance palace, built in 1919 for coal baron Ira Bixler, was designed by Alden & Harlow.

    Ira L. Bixler house at 209 Tennyson Avenue
    Ira Bixler house
    Ira L. Bixler house at 209 Tennyson Avenue
    Ira L. Bixler house at 209 Tennyson Avenue
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
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  • Renaissance Palace in Sheraden

    3045 Bergman Street

    This dignified Renaissance mansion was built earlier than the rest of the houses on its street, probably in about 1900, when it would have been just about the finest house in the up-and-coming borough of Sheraden. It has been turned into apartments, but the exterior details are well maintained.

    Front elevation of the house
    front porch and entrance

    The architect had fun drawing this front entrance, and we praise the current owners for keeping it in good shape.

    Front door
    3045 Bergman Street
    Kodak EasyShare Z981.
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  • Murphy Building, Sheraden

    Murphy Building

    William J. Shaw was the architect of the most prominent commercial block in Sheraden, built in 1904 or 1905 for Sheraden’s own self-made developer, contractor, and civic luminary John Murphy.1 The details are mostly Renaissance; but the heavily eyebrowed arches and weighty and elaborate cornice make the term “Rundbogenstil” appropriate, giving us another chance to say the word “Rundbogenstil.”

    Inscription: “MVRPHY”
    Acute angle of the Murphy Building

    This is a classic Pittsburgh “flatiron” building, with the classic Pittsburgh problem of three dimensions of irregularity in the lot. To the right the ground slopes precipitously down to the Sheraden station—a railroad station when it was built, a busway station now that the West Busway has duplicated the old Panhandle commuter route to the western suburbs.

    Corner of the Murphy Building

    We considered taking those utility cables out. After a couple of experiments, we realized it would require more hand-painting than we were willing to do.

    Pilaster base with egg-and-dart ornament

    A pilaster base on the sharp corner with oversized egg-and-dart ornamentation.

    False Balcony

    A Renaissance false balcony with egg-and-dart, dentils, and balusterasters in relief. Old Pa Pitt had to invent the term “balusteraster” to describe these false balusters, and now that he has invented it he will use it wherever appropriate. We can see that this building keeps a sharp eye on the complicated and confusing every-which-way intersection outside; possibly the most amusing videos are posted to some YouTube channel.

    Murphy Building
    Inscription
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    Inscription on the Hillsboro Street side.

    1. Pittsburgh Gazette, July 9, 1904, p. 11: “Plans are being prepared by Architect W. J. Shaw for a three-story store and office building to be erected in Railroad street, Sheraden, at a cost of $32,000 by John Murphy.” Also, Philadelphia Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide, July 27, 1904, p. 481: “Plans have been prepared by Architect W. J. Shaw, Smith Building, for a three-story store and office building to be erected on Railroad street, Sheraden, for Mr. John Murphy, at a cost of $32,000. It will be well finished throughout and provided with the usual modern conveniences.” ↩︎
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  • Belmar School, Homewood

    Belmar school, front elevation

    Thomas Cox McKee was the architect of this school, built in 1901. This Renaissance palace is probably his most important remaining work, now that the Shady Avenue Cumberland Presbyterian Church is gone. The school is no longer in use, so Father Pitt assigns it the Vulnerable label on his scale of Least Concern, Near Threatened, Vulnerable, Endangered, Critically Endangered, and Demolished.

    Windows of the school
    Lintel and wreath
    Pilaster and window
    Modernistic entrance
    Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR.

    A modernistic entrance is out of character with the main school, but it is probably better than a halfhearted attempt to match the original style.

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  • Fancy Front in Allentown

    740 East Warrington Avenue
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    If you’re stuck in a dumpy old wooden building and your business is prospering, but not prospering that much, you can make a good impression by putting a new front on the building and leaving the rest. That’s what happened here. This is actually a wood-frame building—except on the street face, where the owner added a spiffy new brick and stone front. Old maps reveal the secret: a thin line of brick appears on the front of the wooden building between 1910 and 1923. Mission accomplished: the building looked new and expensive, but the owner wasn’t deep in debt.

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