Father Pitt

Tag: Steinmark (Arthur N.)

  • Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church, Wilkinsburg

    Front elevation, Calvary Lutheran

    This church, kept in good shape as the Pittsburgh Urban Christian School, has a complicated architectural history, and old Pa Pitt will not attempt to sort it all out. The cornerstone bears a date of 1915:

    Cornerstone with date 1915

    We have seen the name O. M. Topp associated with the church, but a 1931 biography of Arthur N. Steinmark lists this church among his accomplishments.1 In 1915 Steinmark was working for MacClure & Spahr, which makes it seem unlikely that he designed the 1915 portion. But the church is a complex of attached buildings, and Steinmark might have been responsible for some of it.

    Update: Our correspondent David Schwing points to the page on Calvary Lutheran at Wilkinsburg Sacred Spaces, which tells us (quoting an anniversary book),

    On December 15, 1929, “Calvary had a rededication service at the completion of a $35,000 building expansion and improvement program which added the tower, the Rose Window, the balcony and included the renovation of the Chancel.”

    That $35,000 project is probably Steinmark’s work. Father Pitt believes, however, that only the top of the tower was part of the Steinmark project, because an old picture on that same page shows the rest of the tower as Pittsburgh black stone like the rest of the church, but the top as pristine white.

    Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church
    Entrance
    Tower

    The top of the tower is probably a replacement for a doomed spire. (Update: See the update above. It is possible that a spire was planned and never built, as often happened with church towers.)

    Calvary Lutheran, Wilkinsburg
    Transept window
    Calvary education wing

    This smaller section appears to be the older sanctuary; old maps suggest that it is probably the 1900 church designed by Wilkinsburg’s own L. A. Raisig,2 given a new stone front to match the main building.

    Front of the education wing
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
    1. Pittsburgh of Today: Its Resources and People, By Frank C. Harper. New York: American Historical Society, 1931. (Page 309.) ↩︎
    2. Record & Guide, August 8, 1900, p. 511. “At Wilkinsburg, Station D, Pittsburg, a $25,000 brick church will be erected by the Calvary Lutheran Society. L. A. Riasig, Penn and Wood streets, architects. Rev. J. Bradley Markward, pastor.” ↩︎
    Comments

  • Evangelical Congregational Church, McKeesport

    Evangelical Congregational Church

    New England Colonial style with an outsized octagonal tower that certainly commands attention.

    Evangelical Congregational Church

    Addendum: The church was dedicated in 1952; the architect was Arthur N. Steinmark,1 who made a specialty of traditionally styled churches in the postwar era when many other architects had become fanatical converts to modernism.

    Entrance
    Tower and spire of the Evangelical Congregational Church
    Evangelical Congregational Church
    Sony Alpha 3000.
    Comments

  • Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, Coraopolis

    Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church

    Here is a fine example of the last gasp of Gothic architecture in America. This church was built as late as 1951 in a style that would have seemed reasonably conservative twenty years earlier. The building has passed into the hands of the Immanuel Orthodox Presbyterian congregation, and members were spiffing up the grounds while old Pa Pitt was taking these pictures.

    Cornerstone: Zion Lutheran Church, 1899 • 1951
    West front entrance

    The west-front entrance is very similar to what William P. Hutchins did more than two decades earlier at St. Francis Xavier Church in Brighton Heights; perhaps they were both inspired by the same historical example.

    Addendum: The architect was Arthur N. Steinmark, who had worked for Hutchins at about the time he was designing St. Francis Xavier.1

    Entrance
    Chi-Rho with alpha and omega
    Hand
    Dove
    Lantern
    Lantern
    Zion Lutheran

    Around the corner, behind the church, is a Sunday-school building that dates from 1928 in a style we might call Educational Gothic.

    Sunday school
    Cornerstone: Zion Ev. Lutheran Sunday School Anno Domini 1928
    Sunday-school entrance

    Cameras: Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    1. “Who, What, Why, When and Where in Today’s Church Work,” Charette, December, 1949, p. 17. “In Coraopolis, Steinmark’s Zion Lutheran Church of brick and limestone will run into an existing three-story parish house.” ↩︎