Built to be an inspiring showcase of the world’s best traditions in art, the College of Fine Arts building was positioned at the top of the Mall, as if the arts might be of some importance even in a technical school.
Niches along the front of the building pay tribute to various architectural and sculptural traditions.
This Renaissance house in Shadyside is now a residence for first-year students at Carnegie Mellon. The round dormer is unusual, but there was a brief fad for them around the turn of the twentieth century: see also the J. J. Matthews House.
Addendum: The architect was Frederick Osterling. This is the sole survivor of a row of three houses Osterling designed; this one was for James H. Hammond. See Works of F. J. Osterling by J. Franklin Nelson, 1904.
This building on the Diamond has lost its cornice, but the rest of it is intact, and the details are worth a closer look.
Until a few years ago, this building was the home of Weldin’s, the venerable stationer that had been selling pens, ink, and paper since well before the Civil War. Weldin’s itself is no more—the business moved to the Gulf Tower for a few years, and then vanished in the early months of the COVID pandemic. But the extraordinarily rich Italian Renaissance front of this building remains as a highlight of an extraordinarily rich row of small commercial buildings on Wood Street.
Addendum: Although the building itself is considerably older, the front is the work of architect George Schwan, who designed a new front for the building in 1913. From the Construction Record, December 13, 1913: “Architect George H. Schwan, Peoples Bank Building, has plans nearly completed for altering a three-story brick mercantile building on 415 Wood street, for J. R. Weldin & Company, 431 Wood street. Cost, $10,000.” In 1913, $10,000 would have bought an entire replacement of the front and much of the interior.
Italian Renaissance architecture filtered through an Art Deco lens makes an extraordinarily rich little building on Brownsville Road. The storefronts have been modernized; they would almost certainly not have had doors that open right into pedestrians’ faces when this building was put up in 1928. But the overall impression the building makes is still dignified, with a touch of Venetian fantasy that reminds us of a Pandro S. Berman production.
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.
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.
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.
One of Benno Janssen’s masterpieces; here we see it from the Cathedral of Learning grounds.
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.
