Father Pitt

Tag: Skyscrapers

  • Allegheny Building

    Forever overshadowed by its taller neighbor the Frick Building, the Allegheny Building, built in 1906, is also by Daniel Burnham, and also a Frick project. It is one of his spare, almost modernistic designs, and it is fascinating to see how well the classical vocabulary adapts to twentieth-century simplicity.

  • K&L Gates Center

    Formerly One Oliver Plaza, this modernist block from 1968 was one of the last works of William Lescaze, pioneer of modernism, who died the next year. Old Pa Pitt confesses to not missing him a whole lot.

  • One Gateway Center

    A view of One Gateway Center straight down the plaza, flanked by Two Gateway Center and Three Gateway Center.

  • Arrott Building from Wood Street

    The Arrott Building, still under renovation, looms over the shops of Wood Street on a grey but busy December morning.

  • One PPG Place from Wood Street

    Looming over the smaller buildings on Fifth Avenue, One PPG Place looks like a fantasy tower in a superhero movie, which is why it tends to play fantasy towers in superhero movies.

  • Entrance to the Frick Building

    The Frick Building was designed by Daniel Burnham to convey one message, and with its austere classical dignity it succeeds perfectly. The message was “Henry Frick is more important than Andrew Carnegie.” The Frick Building dwarfed the Carnegie Building next door, which had once been the tallest in the city; by the time Frick had surrounded Carnegie’s building with taller buildings, the Carnegie Building was no longer an attractive place to be, and it was demolished to make way for the Kaufmann’s annex.

  • Union National Bank Building

    The architects, MacClure and Spahr, gave this classical tower an unusual rounded corner, and drew attention to the main entrance by placing it in that corner.

  • Base of the Tower at PNC Plaza

    The base of earth’s greenest skyscraper, as it called itself when it was going up, is all shiny curves and lights and reflections.

  • Tower Two-Sixty

    Tower Two-Sixty on Forbes Avenue, seen from the northwest.

  • Four Gateway Center

    Four Gateway Center from Stanwix Street, with bonus utility work in front.