Edward J. Weber, who wrote the book on Catholic Church Buildings, was the architect of this little building, part of the cathedral complex and now known as the St. Paul Cathedral Center. This building and Synod Hall behind it were built in 1914.
We have more pictures of the Chancery here.
Built in 1907, this Jacobean palace was the work of John T. Comès. We happen to know that it was roofed with McClure’s Genuine Charcoal Iron Re-Dipped Roofing Tin, because in a 1910 advertisement that company proudly reproduced the architect’s perspective rendering of the building:
Notice in the rendering that Comès has drawn sections of tapestry brick, which is typical of his work—if he was going to use brick, he was going to use it to its full decorative potential. Either he was overruled by the client or he changed his mind, because the building as it stands is just ordinary red brick in Flemish stretcher bond, with stone trim for decoration.
The building is now the St. Joan of Arc Building of Oakland Catholic High School, and the Trib has a story from 2013 about the renovations to the St. Joan of Arc Building to bring it into the early twenty-first century.
This composition is no longer possible, because the building in the foreground was demolished to make way for the larger Rand Building that occupies the corner of Fifth and Craig today. At least old Pa Pitt is fairly sure he was standing in the old Mellon Bank building, although after almost three decades the memory clouds over a bit, and he had to rely on maps and angles to make that determination.
A little experiment in digital art. It began with a photograph of one of the Gothic gateposts outside the chancery behind St. Paul’s Cathedral in Oakland. That was made black and white, and then put through a multiple-layer “etching” filter, and then every detail that looked at all modern was scribbled over. This is the result. Was it worth the work? Probably not, but one can always learn something from these experiments.
