Tag: Romanesque Architecture

  • Church of the Epiphany, Lower Hill

    West front of Epiphany Church

    Edward Stotz was the architect of the building for Epiphany Church, with considerable interior work done by John T. Comès. It was built in 1903 to replace the old St. Paul’s Cathedral downtown as the downtown parish church after Henry Frick made the Catholic Diocese an offer it couldn’t refuse, and Epiphany served as the temporary cathedral for three years while the new St. Paul’s was going up in Oakland.

    Epiphany Church

    When the Lower Hill was demolished for “slum clearance,” Epiphany and its school were the only buildings allowed to survive. Thus Pittsburgh accomplished, here and at Allegheny Center, what Le Corbusier had failed to do in Paris: we created a sterile modern wasteland punctuated by a few ancient landmarks pickled in brine.

    Detail of the West Front

    These Romanesque columns and arches strongly remind old Pa Pitt of organ pipes.

    Rose Window
    West Front
    Statue of Christ

    Christ stands at the peak of the west front.

    Statue of St. Peter

    On Christ’s right hand, St. Peter with his key.

    Statue of St. Paul

    On Christ’s left hand, St. Paul with his book.

    Angel

    An angel with plenty of anti-pigeon armor prays for worshipers as they enter.

    Epiphany Church
    Epiphany School

    The school is built in a simpler Romanesque style that links and subordinates it to the church.

    “Epiphany” inscribed on the school
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    Officially the Lower Hill has ceased to exist. It is counted as part of downtown in the city’s administrative scheme. But it has never been integrated into downtown, and indeed was forcibly cut off from downtown by the Crosstown Boulevard—a bad mistake recently ameliorated somewhat by building a park on top of the boulevard. With the new FNB Financial Center and other developments, there is some hope that this neglected wasteland may become city again. Meanwhile, Epiphany, now part of Divine Mercy Parish, still serves downtown worshipers, and perhaps will be there for new residents as the neighborhood grows and changes.


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  • Two Houses on Brighton Road, Allegheny West

    913 Brighton Road

    These two houses facing West Park on what used to be Irwin Avenue both have interestingly complex histories. The one above has a detailed history by the late Carol Peterson, so here we will only mention the things that led to its appearance today and encourage you to see the Peterson history for more details. It was built in about 1870 as an Italianate house. In 1890 Augusta and Jacob Kaufmann of the Kaufmann Brothers department store bought the house. It was given a third floor, and the whole house was made over in the Romanesque style with Queen Anne overtones.

    Front door
    907 Brighton Road

    The house next door was probably built at about the same time as its neighbor. Without the help of Carol Peterson, we can only report what we observe. It was also built in the Italianate style, and it looks as though the third floor is an addition here as well. But the addition may have been made earlier than the alterations to its neighbor, since the tall windows were done in the same Italianate style as the ones below the third floor. The round bay in front was finished off with a mansard roof, showing the influence of the Second Empire style that was popular here before Romanesque became the big fad.

    907 Brighton Road
    Window
    Lintel
    907 Brighton Road
    Kodak EasyShare Z981.

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  • Harry Darlington House, Allegheny West

    Harry Darlington house

    One room wide and a block deep, the Harry Darlington house stuffs its lot to capacity.

    Fourth-floor balcony
    Gable ornament

    Elaborate terra-cotta decorations enliven the face of the house.

    Ornament
    Terra cotta
    Letitia Holmes house and Harry Darlington house
    Kodak EasyShare Z981; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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  • House by Frederick Sauer in Highland Park

    5906 Callowhill Street

    Perhaps the best way to describe the architect Frederick Sauer is to say that he was a high-functioning mad genius. He produced some very respectable church designs—St. Stephen Proto-Martyr, St. Stanislaus Kostka, and St. Mary of the Mount, to name three. Meanwhile, he went home every evening and started pulling rocks out of his back woods and piling them up into whimsical buildings with his own hands.

    When he designed a private residence, Sauer sometimes pushed the limits of current styles. Here is a big stony house built from his design in 1893. It hits some of the fashionable Romanesque notes, but that immense crowstepped Flemish gable makes a big impression on the neighbors. (The high-pitched roof and big gables also give the house a roomy third floor.)

    5906 Callowhill Street
    5906 Callowhill Street, capital
    House by Frederick Sauer
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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  • Snively House, North Point Breeze

    6707 Penn Avenue

    This fashionably Romanesque house was probably built in the 1890s for a W. Snively. It has been converted to apartments, but the original outlines of the house are still evident. If, by the way, you are embarrassed by the soot stains on the stone of your house, old Pa Pitt suggests overcoming your embarrassment and embracing the history that soot represents. The alternative of painting your stone grey is not a success.

    Dormer
    Snively house
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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  • Third Ward School, Dutchtown

    Third Ward Public School

    Designed by Frederick Sauer, this school was called the Latimer School after Allegheny was conquered by Pittsburgh. It was built in 1898.

    Date stone with date 1898

    In the 1980s it was converted to apartments under the name “The School House.” As far as old Pa Pitt knows, this was the first major conversion of a disused school to apartments in the city, and it showed that the idea was viable.

    Entrance

    The school was converted to apartments in the age of Postmodernism, and the designer of this canopy cleverly made it a kind of abstracted projection of the original entrance. Father Pitt caught the fabric part of the canopy on a bad hair day.

    Romanesque capital
    Latimer School
    North Avenue side of the school
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    The North Avenue side.

    Map.


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  • Point Breeze Presbyterian Church

    St. Paul Baptist Church

    Now St. Paul Baptist Church. Built in 1887, it was designed by Brooklyn architect Lawrence B. Valk, whose church designs can be found all over the country. (In about 1900, Valk and his son moved to Los Angeles, where they became bungalow specialists but continued turning out the occasional church.)

    Point Breeze Presbyterian Church

    The tower with its huge open Romanesque arch dominates the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Penn Avenue. After the tower, the most eye-catching thing is the porch, with its even huger arch and its crust of terra-cotta tiles.

    Porch
    Porch roof with terra cotta
    Side of the porch
    Tower
    Side entrance

    The side entrance also gets a big arch, and even the basement door gets a stony arched porch.

    Basement entrance
    Rear of Point Breeze Presbyterian Church
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

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  • Evangelische Imanuel’s Kirche, Dutchtown

    Evangelische Imanuel’s Kirche

    Built for a German Reformed congregation, Imanuel Evangelical Church later became a Methodist church, and then an art gallery. This is another city church with the sanctuary upstairs.

    Front entrance with inscription

    The inscription on the front tells us that the church was built in 1859 and rebuilt in 1889. Father Pitt does not know how extensive the rebuilding was, but he might guess that the ground-floor windows on the side, with their angular Gothic arches, were from the 1859 building. The carved stonework ornaments probably date from 1889.

    Dragon in Romanesque foliage

    Whenever old Pa Pitt looks into Romanesque foliage and sees somebody looking back at him, he suspects our master of Romanesque grotesqueries, Achille Giammartini.

    Dragon carving
    View across the Tripoli Street bridge
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    The Parkway North just missed this building when it tore Dutchtown in two.


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  • Keech Block

    Keech Block
    This picture has been manipulated on two planes to match the perspective of the 1889 image below. It is no longer possible to stand in exactly the same place, because other buildings have sprouted in inconvenient places.

    W. H. Keech was a dealer in furniture and carpets. In the 1880s he built this towering six-floor commercial palace on Penn Avenue at Garrison Place in the furniture district. The main part of the building has hardly changed since the photograph below was published in Pittsburgh Illustrated in 1889:

    Keech Block

    Probably in the 1890s, an addition was put on the right-hand side of the building, matching the original as well as possible.

    Keech Block with addition

    This building is festooned with decorative details in just the right places, including some Romanesque carved stone above the entrance. (Addendum: The architect of the original building and additions, including one to the right later destroyed by fire and another one after that, was James T. Steen, according to a plaque on the Conover Building three doors down, which was originally part of the expanded Keech Block.)

    Detail of the Keech Block
    Romanesque capital
    Romanesque foliage
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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  • The Late Shady Avenue Cumberland Presbyterian Church

    Shady Avenue Cumberland Presbyterian Church

    Exactly two years ago today, Father Pitt paid a visit to this unique church, one of the most imaginative works of architect Thomas Cox McKee. At the time, he had no idea the church would be demolished a few months later, or he would have documented it more carefully. Looking back on the pictures he published then, old Pa Pitt decided they were lousy, not to mince words. As a memorial to the vanished building, he decided to go back to the original images and see if he could make better pictures out of them. Two years from now, Father Pitt will look back at these pictures and think they were lousy and he could do better, but the delight of a life of constant learning is seeing incremental improvement.

    Shady Avenue Cumberland Presbyterian Church

    To put the pictures in context, we reprint the text of the article we published two years ago:

    Now known as Shady Avenue Christian Assembly, after having spent many years as Shady Avenue Presbyterian Church (without the “Cumberland”).

    Just down the street from the huge and spectacular Calvary Episcopal and Sacred Heart Catholic churches, each the size of many a cathedral, this 1889 church is likely to pass unnoticed. Once you do notice it, though, you will not stop noticing it. It is a bravura performance in a sort of Queen Anne Romanesque style by a Victorian architect who was about 22 years old at the time, and who was not afraid to pull out all the stops and stomp on the pedals for all he was worth. An entire issue of the East Ender, the East End Historical Society’s newsletter, was devoted to the architect, T. C. McKee (PDF), and we take all our information from Justin P. Greenawalt with profound gratitude for his research.

    Thomas Cox McKee (usually known as T. C. McKee) was apprenticed to architect James W. Drum. But in 1886, when young McKee was still only 20, his master was run over by a freight train. Instead of looking for another apprentice position, McKee went out on his own and seems to have been successful right away. He later built a comfortable practice designing homes for the wealthy and small to medium-sized commercial buildings, along with at least one prominent school (the Belmar School in Homewood, still standing). Then, in 1910, he threw it all away and went to Cleveland, where he took odd jobs until he settled down as a designer of soda fountains. No one seems to know what happened, although Mr. Greenawalt’s article hints that it might have had something to do with McKee’s constitutional extravagance.

    That extravagance comes through in every detail of this building. In the age of modernism, this sort of thing was dismissed as a bunch of Victorian noise, but the masses are balanced to form interesting compositions from every angle.

    Aurelia Street side with tower
    Aurelia Street side with tower
    Windows and woodwork
    Woodwork
    Round auditorium
    Tower
    1911 addition

    The much more conventional 1911 addition (although even it is a little bit fantastical) was designed by Rodgers & Minnis. Below we see it across the pile of dirt that used to be Shady Hill Center until the property became too valuable to host a suburban-style strip mall.

    1911 addition

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