Father Pitt

Tag: Romanesque Architecture

  • Stone Schwartz Building, Allegheny West

    Sony Alpha 3000.

    This Romanesque warehouse appears from old maps to have been built around the turn of the twentieth century for the Allegheny Transfer Company. It later belonged to Donaldson Transfer, as a ghost sign at the top of the building testifies (enlarge the picture to examine it closely). It has been a few things since then, and it was for sale when old Pa Pitt visited it. If you want a distinctive commercial or even residential space in one of our most pleasant neighborhoods, here is your opportunity.

    A few years ago, Father Pitt took a picture of this building in sunset light, but it looks as though he never published it. So here it is now.

    Composite of three pictures from a Canon PowerShot A540.

  • Allegheny City Stables, North Side

    Allegheny City Stables

    About five years ago we looked at the Allegheny City Stables in the middle of its adaptation into loft apartments. Now the renovation is complete, and a new apartment building has gone up next door, making this block of North Avenue much more inviting. Technically it is across the street from Allegheny West, but it was the Allegheny West Civic Council that saved the building, and socially it forms part of today’s Allegheny West rather than the rest of the “Central Northside” neighborhood as designated on city planning maps.

    Entrance
    Perspective view
    Sony Alpha 3000.

  • Wm. O. Johnston & Co. Building

    Corner of Penn Avenue and Ninth Street
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    The corner of Penn Avenue and Ninth Street. The building on the corner is the Wm. O. Johnston & Co. building, built for a printer who was one of the successors to the venerable Zadok Cramer of the Franklin Head Bookstore. We also have a composite picture of the front of the building.

  • Decorations on the Maginn Building

    Arch on the Maginn Building

    Father Pitt is fairly certain that the ornamental stonecarving on the Maginn Building was done by Achille Giammartini, Pittsburgh’s master of Romanesque whimsies. The style is Giammartini’s, and the building was designed by Charles Bickel, who is known to have brought in Giammartini for the German National Bank (now the Granite Building) around the corner, as we see in this advertisement:

    Advertisement for Achille Giammartini

    But, you say, speculation is not enough for you. You want the artist’s signature. Well, to old Pa Pitt, this looks like a signature:

    Face with mustache in the corner of the arch

    In fact, Father Pitt has formed the hypothesis that Giammartini littered the city with self-caricatures in Romanesque grotesque. Several other buildings bear carved faces similar to these two in the corners of the arch on the seventh floor of the Maginn Building.

    Grotesque face

    The rest of the ornaments are also in Giammartini’s trademark style: lush Romanesque foliage with slightly cartoonish faces peering out from the leaves.

    Capital
    Capital with face
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

  • Old Main, Duquesne University

    Old Main, Duquesne University
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    Built in 1885 from a design by William Kauffman, this was an astonishingly lofty building when it went up—our first skyscraper college. Its position up on the bluff gave it spectacular views, at least when the smoke from the city below was not too dense, from the cupola that used to stand at the peak of the roof.

    We also have a picture of the building as it was built, along with a modern picture from the same angle.

  • St. Mary’s Church, Dutchtown

    St. Mary’s German Catholic Church

    Father John Stibiel specified this church, which was built in 1854 for his German parish, and he is usually credited as the designer of it. Some architectural historians, however, think that the architect may have been Charles F. Bartberger, the elder of the two Charles Bartbergers, who made similarly Romanesque designs for St. Paul of the Cross Monastery Church and St. Michael’s, both on the South Side Slopes.

    The vestibule in front was designed by Sidney F. Heckert and built in 1906.

    Door
    Window

    The church narrowly escaped demolition for the Parkway North. Along with the adjacent priory, it was bought by a Pittsburgh businessman who successfully turned the priory into a hotel and the church into “Pittsburgh’s Grand Hall,” a place for weddings and other events.

    Front of the church

    This composite view suffers from the inevitable distortion of the towers, but it otherwise gives us a good notion of the whole front of the church.

  • Third Avenue Front of the Times Building

    Third Avenue front of the Times Building

    The Times Building, designed by Frederick Osterling in his Richardsonian Romanesque period, is a block deep, so it has fronts on both Fourth Avenue and Third Avenue. The Fourth Avenue front is narrower; the Third Avenue front has one more bay, and a single grand arch in the middle. The decorative carving is probably by Achille Giammartini, who is known to have worked with Osterling on the Marine Bank and the Bell Telephone Building, and all his trademark whimsy is on display here.

    Face
    Face
    Foliage
    Face in profile
    Corner of the arch
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

  • Decorations on the County Office Building

    Eagle and county arms

    The County Office Building, which opened in 1931, was designed by Stanley L. Roush, who was the king of public works in Allegheny County for a while. Its combination of styles is unique in Pittsburgh, as far as old Pa Pitt knows. In form it is of the school Father Pitt likes to call American Fascist, the weighty classical style filtered through streamlined Art Deco that was popular for American public buildings between the World Wars, and of which the grandest example in Pittsburgh is the federal courthouse. But the details are Romanesque rather than classical—an acknowledgment of the lingering influence of the great Richardson’s greatest masterpiece, the Allegheny County Courthouse. The carved ornaments are Art Deco adaptations of medieval themes, except for the eagle above, which is not at all medieval, and which clasps the arms of Allegheny County in its talons.

    County Office Building

    The Fourth Avenue side. The County Office Building is roughly square, so the four sides are similar, except that this side lacks an entrance. But this was the side that was lit by the sun when Father Pitt was taking pictures. It took a lot of fiddling and adaptation to get the whole side of the building across a tiny narrow street, so you will see stitching errors and other anomalies if you enlarge the picture.

    Gargoyle

    An Art Deco gargoyle.

    Capital
    Capital
    Capital
    Capital
    Capital
    Capital
    Capital
    Decorative relief
    Frieze
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

  • Tower of the Courthouse

    Tower of the Allegheny County Courthouse
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

  • Robinson House, Dutchtown

    408 Cedar Avenue

    This magnificent home was built for the Robinson family, probably in the 1890s, on a prominent corner facing the East Commons. It replaced an earlier brick house that had stood on the same spot. Locals tell us it is magnificent on the inside as well. One claims to have a mantel from this house in his own house: the Robinson house spent decades as a funeral home, and when the owners tore out interior walls, they offered some of the remains to the neighbors.

    Robinson house
    Turret
    Porch columns
    Dormer
    408 Cedar Avenue