Tag: Renaissance Architecture

  • Centre Court Apartments, Shadyside

    Center Court Apartments

    A simplified Italian Renaissance style, with the ornamentation kept to the minimum. Note the variant spelling of the name on the nameplate over the entrance: when this apartment block was put up, the spelling of Centre Avenue had not been standardized to the British spelling preferred by real-estate developers.

    Nameplate
  • Renaissance Commercial Building, Mount Oliver

    215 and 217 Brownsville Road

    An exceptionally elegant pair of storefronts with apartments above in the main business strip of Mount Oliver. Enlarge the picture and enjoy the Renaissance details.

  • Young Men and Women’s Hebrew Association, Oakland

    Another of Benno Janssen’s imposing clubs. We have seen this building from the front before; this corner view gives us an impression of the scale of the whole structure. It is now Bellefield Hall of the University of Pittsburgh.

  • Pittsburgh Athletic Association

    One of Benno Janssen’s masterpieces; here we see it from the Cathedral of Learning grounds.

  • Renaissance Style in Schenley Farms

    Renaissance palace in Schenley Farms

    Though Tudor was the most popular style in Schenley Farms, there are other styles as well, and there are several fine Italian Renaissance palaces in the neighborhood.

    The same
    Another Renaissance house
    Oblique view
    With fine tile roof
    Ornament
    Brick Renaissance
  • Henry Chalfant House, Allegheny West

    Chalfant Hall

    Now Chalfant Hall of the Community College of Allegheny County, and currently getting a thorough renovation. The house was built in about 1900; no one seems to know who the architect was. Henry Chalfant was a successful lawyer whose father was a successful lawyer as well.

    Front
    Detail
  • Board of Public Education Building, Oakland

    Forbes Avenue front

    One of the many Italian Renaissance palaces in the monumental district of Oakland, this one—unlike many of the others—still serves its original purpose. It was designed by Ingham & Boyd and opened in 1938. Because of the street layout, the building is a large trapezoid with a courtyard garden. It is worth the time to pause and examine the details.

    From the corner of Forbes and Bellefield
    Bellefield Avenue side
    Entrance
    False balcony
    Cartouche
    Indian head
    Window
    Oval window
    Another Indian head
    From Bellefield and Filmore
  • Boggs Avenue School, Mount Washington

    A modest Renaissance palace designed by Sydney F. Heckert and built in 1925. It is now apartments.

    When the building was converted from school to residence, someone thought this treatment of the front entrances was a good idea. Someone was mistaken.

  • Woolslair Public School, Bloomfield/Lawrenceville

    Woolslair Public School

    This fine Renaissance palace, built in 1897, was designed by Samuel T. McClaren. It sits on 40th Street at Liberty Avenue, where it is technically—according to city planning maps—in Bloomfield. Most Pittsburghers, however, would probably call this section of Bloomfield “Lawrenceville,” since it sticks like a thumb into lower Lawrenceville, and the Lawrenceville line runs along two edges of the school’s lot.

    For some reason the style of this building is listed as “Romanesque revival” wherever we find it mentioned on line. Old Pa Pitt will leave it up to his readers: is this building, with its egg-and-dart decorations, false balconies, and Trajanesque inscriptions, anything other than a Victorian interpretation of a Renaissance interpretation of classical architecture? Now, if you had said “Rundbogenstil,” Father Pitt might have accepted it, because he likes to say the word “Rundbogenstil.”

    Entrance
    Front
    Northern side
  • House on Northumberland Street, Squirrel Hill

    House on Northumberland Street

    Something like a Pittsburgh foursquare stretched into a Renaissance palace, this house prefers simple dignity to ostentatious ornament.

    Oblique view