Impressive fat columns tell us that this is a colossal building even if we’re too close to see how colossal it really is. The architect was Daniel “Make No Little Plans” Burnham.
The main tower of Allegheny General is one of the few classic skyscrapers outside downtown, and a landmark of Art Deco in Pittsburgh, as well as a landmark of the style Father Pitt calls Mausoleum-on-a-Stick, where the top of the tower is modeled after the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. It was designed by York & Sawyer, who made a specialty of hospitals, and built in 1930. Today we’re going to pay particular attention to the grand entrance on North Avenue, which is covered with extravagant terra-cotta decorations, so we have more than thirty pictures to show you.
The Chamber of Commerce Building seems to be neglected in Pittsburgh lore; nobody mentions it, and in fact the Skyscraper Page Pittsburgh skyscraper diagram skips right over it, ignoring it completely, though the diagram includes a number of considerably smaller and shorter buildings. Even old Pa Pitt has never featured this building before, mostly because it is difficult to get a picture of the whole building. So here is an illustration of the building when it was new; it has changed very little. It is easier to pick out details with a versatile lens, so here are a few of the interesting decorations. The architects were Edward B. Lee, who moved his office into the building when it was finished, and James P. Piper.
The base of the U. S. Steel Tower is where all the drama of the building is concentrated. From a distance, it’s a black slab dominating the skyline, but at the base, the impossibly spindly supports make the building seem to hover like something in a René Magritte painting.
Now called EQT Plaza, this is one of old Pa Pitt’s favorite Postmodernist buildings from the 1980s “Renaissance II” boom. The architect was William Pederson of Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates.
