Father Pitt

Tag: Rundbogenstil

  • Union Methodist Episcopal Church, Manchester

    Manhattan Street face of the Union Methodist Episcopal Church

    Barr & Moser were big names in the architecture of the up-and-coming city of Pittsburgh in the middle 1800s. This church, which opened in 1867, is one of their few surviving works. It is in some ways a typical Pittsburgh neighborhood church, with the sanctuary upstairs. But the three arches at the top of the Manhattan Street face of the building are anything but typical. Some replacement brick in the large center arch suggests that some decorative element decayed and was filled in, but even as the building stands now we can see how modern it must have looked in the time just after the Civil War.

    This picture took six separate photographs to render, but the result is the front of the church almost as the architects drew it.

    From the corner of Manhattan and Pennsylvania
    Cornerstone: New Zion Baptist Church

    The church has belonged to at least three different congregations. It was the Union Methodist Episcopal Church through the early 1900s; by 1923 it belonged to St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church; then in 1961—as this replacement cornerstone records—it was bought by the New Zion Baptist Church. The building does not appear to be in use right now, but we hope it can be maintained.

    Pennsylvania Avenue side of the church
    Union Methodist Episcopal Church
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

  • Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children, Oakland

    Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children

    George S. Orth was the architect of this palace of education, which was finished in 1894. It’s a little bit Flemish Renaissance, with eye-catching horizontal stripes and Rundbogenstil eyebrows over the arches.

    Front of the school
    Entrance arcade

  • Row of Houses on North Avenue

    Row of houses on North Avenue

    These are what old Pa Pitt calls Baltimore-style rowhouses: that is, rowhouses where the whole row is built as one subdivided building right against the sidewalk (as opposed to the typical Pittsburgh terrace, where the houses are set back with tiny front yards). Since North Avenue is the neighborhood boundary on city planning maps, these fall into the “Central Northside” for planning purposes; but socially they formed part of the wealthy section of Allegheny that includes Allegheny West across the street.

    Rowhouses on North Avenue

  • Ferguson Block

    Now the Keystone Flats apartments, this building was put up in the 1890s, and that is about all old Pa Pitt knows about it. It’s a good example of the Rundbogenstil, straddling the line between Romanesque and Renaissance.

    In most cities, Third Avenue would be called an alley, so it is nearly impossible to get a picture like this. It cannot be done without a lot of fudging, so you will notice slightly different colors in different parts of the picture. But it does give us a good idea of the design.

  • Hartje Brothers Building

    Hartje Brothers Building

    The Boulevard of the Allies side of one of the side-by-side Hartje Brothers buildings. Charles Bickel designed this building and the matching one behind it on Wood Street. This was the later of the two, both built in 1902 for the Hartje Brothers Paper Manufacturing Company. Mr. Bickel was extraordinarily prolific, but old Pa Pitt thinks he deserved his success. For an interesting comparison, look at the Reymer Brothers candy factory and the Concordia Club, and see how Charles Bickel created different effects from the same basic shapes.

    One window

  • Masonic Hall, Carnegie

    Masonic Hall, A.D. 1904

    The Masonic Hall in Carnegie is a fine example of small-town Rundbogenstil, taking its details from Renaissance architecture and its rhythm from industrial Romanesque.

    Perspective view of the Masonic Hall

    If Father Pitt owned this building and had to put up with those two modern blisters on top, he would have them painted to look like cat ears.

    Goat

    The goat ornaments were doubtless intended to reassure the Masons’ neighbors that Masonry has no satanic connotations at all.

  • Commercial Building at Third & Third, Carnegie

    Commercial Building at Third Street and Third Avenue, Carnegie

    Father Pitt took these pictures more than a year ago, but for some reason he never published them until now. This Rundbogenstil building at Third Street and Third Avenue takes full advantage of its corner site, and the details of the pediment and cornice have been lovingly picked out in tastefully balanced colors.

    Pediment
    Third Street side

  • Forsaith Block (and Neighbor), Sharpsburg

    Forsaith Block

    The ground floor of this building has been turned into a garage, but without losing too much of the character of the façade. The date stone tells us that the building was put up in 1889.

    Date stone reading “Forsaith Block, built A. D. 1889”

    Probably a little later, but not too much later, a building went up to the left of this one, perhaps for the same owners.

    1103–1109 Main Street

    This building appears on a 1906 map, which gives us a latest possible date. The style is somewhat different—we might call it Allegheny Valley Rundbogenstil—but the two buildings share some decorative details: the treatment of the cornice is the same, and the same flower-and-foliage ornaments (they look like a jonquil between acanthus leaves) are used on both buildings.

    Jonquil between acanthus leaves
    Round windows

  • House Turned Synagogue in Highland Park

    House turned synagogue

    Several synagogues in Pittsburgh have been adapted from private houses—one of them half a block away from here. This one seems no longer to be a synagogue, so it has gone from residential to institutional to residential again. The inscription is mostly in Hebrew, which old Pa Pitt regrets that he does not read, so perhaps a reader can inform us which congregation was here. The English part of the inscription memorializes Mr. & Mrs. Bennie Fineberg, perhaps the donors.

    We could try to imagine what the front of this house looked like before its conversion. But we needn’t put in the effort, because a nearly identical house is right next door:

    A similar house

    This one has been converted to apartments, and it has suffered some alterations, but nothing that takes very much imagination to remove in our mind’s eye and restore the original look of the house.

  • Victorian Commercial Building in the West End

    An eclectic commercial block on the steep slope of the last block of Wabash Street, this building was probably put up in the 1890s.