Father Pitt

Tag: Scheibler (Frederick)

  • Ruskin Villa Apartments, Wilkinsburg

    Ruskin Villa

    L. A. Raisig was listed as the architect of this well-preserved apartment building, which was built in 1900.1 And that sets old Pa Pitt’s mind speculating, because in the history of architecture, L. A. Raisig is famous, if you could call it that, for exactly one thing: for a brief period, just after Frederick Scheibler finished his apprenticeship with Alden & Harlow, he and Raisig were partners in the firm of Raisig & Scheibler.

    According to Martin Aurand’s biography of Scheibler, “In fact, Raisig was a builder, not an architect, and it is hard to figure what he brought to the short-lived partnership other than an initial sense of security for a young architect.”2

    However, Mr. Aurand may have been mistaken about Raisig. He was writing in the days before instant searches of the Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide were possible, and quite a few listings turn up in which Raisig appears to be acting as architect.

    But when did Scheibler join Raisig? Mr. Aurand found exactly two projects by them, one an unbuilt competition entry, and both from 1901. This apartment building was announced in August of 1900. And when Father Pitt looks at the front of it—

    Front of the building

    —he notices a very distinctive arrangement: two-storey classical columns holding up a broad third-floor balcony, with a smaller second-floor balcony over the entrance. It is not a common arrangement—in fact, old Pa Pitt can think of only one other instance of it at the moment, and it is this building in Park Place:

    This apartment building was put up six years later, in 1906, and it was designed by Frederick Scheibler in his early classical phase.

    What are we to make of this observation? Nothing definite yet; Father Pitt intends to find out more about L. A. Raisig, who disappears from the Record & Guide after the end of his partnership with Scheibler. But we may consider at least the possibility that the Ruskin Villa is a very early work of Frederick Scheibler in partnership with, or working for, L. A. Raisig. So old Pa Pitt leaves this article for now, but he will update it with better information when he knows more about Mr. Raisig and his partnership with young Frederick Scheibler.

    Colonnade
    Sony Alpha 3000.
    1. Source: Record & Guide, August 29, 1900, p. 561. “McDowell Brothers, owners, will erect a three-story brick apartment house at the corner of Wallace avenue and Mulberry street, Wilkinsburg P. O., Station D. The plans are being prepared by Architect L. A. Raisig, of Wilkinsburg. Owner will let contracts.” A 1903 Hopkins map shows the building on the northeast corner owned by “McDowell.” A 1915 Hopkins map shows the name as “Ruskin Villa Apts.” ↩︎
    2. The Progressive Architecture of Frederick G. Scheibler, Jr., p. 10 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994). ↩︎

  • Early Scheibler in Park Place

    226 East End Avenue
    Olympus E-20N.

    Built in 1903, this apartment building on East End Avenue was one of the early works of our future prophetic modernist Frederick Scheibler, while he was still in his classical phase. It is listed as No. 16, “Apartment building for Robinson and Bruckman,” in the Catalogue of the Works of Frederick G. Scheibler, Jr., in The Progressive Architecture of Frederick G. Scheibler, Jr., by Martin Aurand (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994).

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  • Some Details of Highland Towers, Shadyside

    Lunette with “Highland Towers” and address

    We’ll have to wait till the leaves are off the trees to get anything like a complete picture of the front of Highland Towers, one of Frederick Scheibler’s most famous buildings. But this collection of details should be enough to demonstrate why architectural historians drool over it. The building brings a fresh breath of Art Nouveau to Highland Avenue.

    Entrance
    Courtyard
    Balconies

    As built in 1914, the apartments were luxurious residences. Each had a living room, dining room, solarium, kitchen, library or guest room, two bedrooms, bathroom, and servant’s chamber. There were garages in back with gardens on the roofs.

    Mosaic and windows

    Scheibler took the idea for these mosaic patterns from the German graphic designer, architect, industrial designer, type designer, and artist Peter Behrens.

    Mosaic
    Grille
    Front wall
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.
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  • Minnetonka Building, Shadyside

    Minnetonka Building

    Built in 1908, the Minnetonka Building was designed by Frederick Scheibler, and it would be hard to imagine the impression it would have made in Edwardian Shadyside. It looks like a building thirty or forty years ahead of its time, with its simple forms and streamlined curves that look forward to the Moderne architecture of the 1930s and 1940s. But it also has details that remind us of the most up-to-the-minute ideas from those Viennese and German art magazines that we know Scheibler got his hands on.

    Doorway, Minnetonka Building

    This doorway with its Art Nouveau window and Egyptian-style tapering would have been right at home in a magazine like Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration.

    Art glass with roses
    Storefront entrance
    Perspective view of doorways
    Minnetonka Building
    Olympus E-20N.

    More pictures of the Minnetonka Building.

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  • Parkstone Dwellings, North Point Breeze

    Parkstone Dwellings

    Built in 1922, the Parkstone Dwellings are the most astonishing double duplex in Pittsburgh. The architect was Frederick Scheibler, who had come through a period of prophetic modernism into a period of romantic fantasy.

    Left side of the Parkstone Dwellings
    Parkstone Dwellings
    Parkstone Dwellings

    The tenants upstairs are airing out their rugs. No, wait—

    Oriental-rug mosaic

    —that’s a mosaic!

    Mosaic
    Parkstone Dwellings
    Sony Alpha 3000; Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    The Scheibler Treasure Hunt blogger had the good luck to stumble on an estate sale here back in 2013, so you can run to that site for interior shots of one of the Parkstone Dwellings.

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  • Terrace on King Avenue in Highland Park

    1147–1155 King Avenue

    The late Franklin Toker believed that these houses were probably designed by Frederick Scheibler. He was following the original scholars of Frederick Scheibler, Shear and Schmertz, who brought poor old Scheibler out of obscurity in his old age in time to see himself hailed as a prophet of modern architecture.

    Father Pitt hates to contradict Dr. Toker, whose encyclopedic knowledge of Pittsburgh architecture was probably unmatched; but Toker has been wrong before. Martin Aurand, whose biography of Scheibler will probably remain the definitive one for generations to come, lists these houses under the “misattributions.”

    Old Pa Pitt himself is of the Aurand opinion, and in fact Father Pitt has probable grounds for attributing these houses—without, however, claiming complete certainty—to Benno Janssen. His reason is that there is a very similar terrace in Oakland (368–376 McKee Place) that is almost certainly by Janssen & Abbott. Father Pitt hopes to have pictures of those houses soon; meanwhile, you can take his word for it—or look them up on Google Street View—that it would be odd if one of these terraces were by Janssen & Abbott and the other by Scheibler.

    1147–1155 King Avenue
    1153 and 1155 King Avenue
    1149 King Avenue

    These houses are yet another clever answer to the question of how to design a terrace of relatively inexpensive houses so that they are architecturally attractive and distinctive—so that, in other words, they make potential tenants think they’re getting something special. Compare them, for example, to the row just next door to the left, which was built on a lower budget to a much more ordinary design.

    1123–1145 King Avenue
    Terrace on King Avenue

    Which design makes you feel special?

    1147–1155 King Avenue
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
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  • The Linwood, North Point Breeze

    The Linwood with a magnolia

    The Linwood, designed in 1906, is characteristic of Frederick Scheibler in his early-modern phase. You can imagine it being published with approval in one of those German architectural magazines that our local architects occasionally got their hands on. It contained six luxurious apartments, with maids’ quarters, for well-to-do city-dwellers. Although the windows have been replaced and the third-floor balconies have been filled in for sun rooms, the strong lines of the building still make pretty much the same impression they did when it was new. It stands out without offending: it looks like something special, which would be helpful in peddling apartments to the smart set.

    The Linwood, front elevation
    balconies of the Linwood
    The Linwood
    Side of the Linwood
    The Linwood in the rain
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10 (all but this picture); Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

    These pictures were taken just this afternoon. After a while the rain started to pour. But would that deter old Pa Pitt from getting one more picture? Certainly not! He will dry out eventually.

    This is Father Pitt’s first article on anything in North Point Breeze—another neighborhood he has neglected too long. Several other North Point Breeze articles will follow soon.

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  • Scheibler Apartment Building in Highland Park Condemned

    936 Mellon Street

    After years of neglect and decay, this apartment building in the otherwise prosperous neighborhood of Highland Park is finally condemned.

    Condemnation sticker

    And it will be a tragedy to lose it, because it is an extraordinary work by an extraordinary architect.

    Frederick Scheibler is possibly the most-talked-about architect Pittsburgh ever produced, and this building—put up in 1906 for Mary M. Coleman—marks a turning point in Scheibler’s style, according to his biographer Martin Aurand. “The facade departs from precedent, however, in the sheer strength of its massing, and in its near total lack of common domestic imagery—even a cornice.… There is virtually no exterior ornament at all. The Coleman facade continues a process of abstraction begun at the Linwood [in North Point Breeze], but the leap forward in Scheibler’s developing style is sudden.”1

    Coleman apartments

    Considering the value of real estate in Highland Park right now, restoring this building should be not only public-spirited but also profitable. Is any ambitious developer willing to take it on? That blue sticker isn’t necessarily a death sentence: it will be removed if the dangerous conditions are remediated. To make it easier for you, Scheibler’s original drawings for this building are preserved in the Architecture Archive at Carnegie Mellon, so there need be no guesswork in the restoration.

    936 Mellon Street, balconies
    Balconies
    Balcony canopy
    Upper balcony
    Steps and entrance
    Entrance
    936 Mellon Street
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    1. Martin Aurand, The Progressive Architecture of Frederick G. Scheibler, Jr., p. 42 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994). ↩︎

  • Meado’cots, Homewood

    Meado’cots

    Designed by our remarkable early modernist Frederick Scheibler, “Meado’cots” is an unusual set of terrace houses built in 1914—another Scheibler answer to the question of how to make cheap rows of houses architecturally attractive. It sat abandoned and boarded up for quite a while, but now it is inhabited and stable. The metal roofs on the central section and the cheap standard doors are not to old Pa Pitt’s taste, but they were within the budget of the new owner, and they keep the buildings standing and in good shape, with the potential for restoration with original materials later.

    Composite of the central section

    This composite of the central section from above parked-car level is made possible by a kind neighbor from across the street. He saw us struggling to hold the camera up at arm’s length and called down from a third-floor window to offer the use of his stairs for a better angle. Thank you, Homewood neighbor, for confirming Father Pitt’s impression that Homewood is a place where the neighborly virtues are strong.

    Meado’cots, end house
    Corner window

    Note the corner windows. They would become a badge of modernism in the 1940s, but here they are in 1912!

    Meado’cots
    Meado’cots
    Meado’cots

  • Vilsack Row, Morningside

    Houses in the Vilsack Row

    Rows of terrace houses became quite common in Pittsburgh in the early twentieth century, and they all shared the same basic plan: roofed front porches in front of narrow but deep units with shared walls, reducing the expense of each unit. Within that formula, though, there is room for quite a bit of variation. The problem is how to make them attractive even though they are cheap. Because they are on the same street in Morningside, and almost across from each other, we are going to look at two groups today that picked radically different approaches to the problem. In this article, we have by far the better-known of the two: the Vilsack Row by Frederick G. Scheibler, Jr.

    Vilsack Row

    The houses have all been altered in various ways; we can be grateful that they have survived at all. They were certainly the most extraordinary stab at modernism in Pittsburgh, and possibly in the United States, when they were built in 1914. The least mutilated of the row are still startling in their starkly abstract forms.

    Vilsack Row

    Even the ones that have been most altered stand out as like nothing else in Pittsburgh before World War II, let alone before World War I. The alterations have all been retreats from modernism. The porch roofs originally were supported by single columns in the center, so that they seemed to float in space; the porches, entrances, and windows seemed to be holes cut in a continuous flat plane.

    Vilsack Row
    Vilsack Row
    Vilsack Row
    Vilsack Row
    Vilsack Row

    The houses are called the Vilsack Row, incidentally, because they were an investment by Leopold Vilsack, one of the owners of Iron City Brewing, who rests in St. Mary’s Cemetery in a mausoleum of quite a different style.

    Radical modernism was certainly not the only solution to the problem of rowhouse design. At about the same time these houses were going up, the Garber row was being built on the same street, and it took almost the opposite approach.