Since it was built as public housing and opened in 1973, and since it bears a strong resemblance to his many other public-housing projects, Father Pitt does not hesitate to assign this building to Tasso Katselas, the king of public works in Pittsburgh.
An apartment fire fortunately was confined.
An abstraction with part of Milton Hall and the campus library at the Allegheny Campus of CCAC. Tasso Katselas was the architect.
Designed by Tasso Katselas, this 22-storey apartment tower opened in 1962. It has reverted to its original name, Highland House, after some years as “the Park Lane.”
Many projects for skyscraper apartments or hotels were proposed for Highland Park, but this is the only one that ever succeeded. “A dramatic use of the Miesian glass cage formula applied to a 22 story apartment house” was how James D. Van Trump described it in “The Stones of Pittsburgh.” “Located on the edge of Highland Park it seems to float above a nearby reservoir.”
Miesian is a good term for it: the building adopts the colonnade of stilts that became the signature of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Many imitators of Mies seem to lose courage and make the peripteral colonnade a narrow and useless space; see, for example, the Westinghouse Building. Katselas, on the other hand, if anything exaggerated the width of the porch, so that the ground floor is reduced to a little entrance cage, leaving a big broad outdoor space under the shelter of twenty-one floors of steel and glass.
Old Pa Pitt’s New Year’s resolution is to bring you more of the same, and to try to get better at it.
The May Building was designed by Charles Bickel, probably the most prolific architect Pittsburgh ever had, and a versatile one as well.
The famous Sicilian Greek mathematician and philosopher and inventor and scientist Archimedes was nicknamed “Beta” in his lifetime, because he was second-best at everything. That was Charles Bickel. If you wanted a Beaux Arts skyscraper like this one, he would give you a splendid one; it might not be the most artistic in the whole city, but it would be admired, and it would hold up for well over a century. If you wanted Richardsonian Romanesque, he could give it to you in spades; it might not be as sophisticated as Richardson, but it would be very good and would make you proud. If you wanted the largest commercial building in the world, why, sure, he was up to that, and he would make it look so good that a century later people would go out of their way to find a use for it just because they liked it so much.
The modernist addition on the right-hand side of the building was designed by Tasso Katselas.
Tasso Katselas designed this mixed-use building, an apartment tower on top of a parking garage. It opened in 1966. For a while it was known by its address as 625 Stanwix Tower. Now it has been refurbished and given a spiffy new coat of black, which makes a big difference in its appearance. Compare the picture old Pa Pitt took from across the Allegheny nine years ago:
Back then, Father Pitt was a bit harsh in his criticism: “There is no rhythm to the apartment section, not even a jazzy syncopation,” he wrote. But the new coat of black emphasizes the vertical lines and gives the building exactly the rhythm it was missing—which turns out to be a jazzy syncopation.
We saw Neville House in color earlier. These three monochrome pictures were taken with a Kodak Retinette made in the middle 1950s. Above, the exit from the porte cochere under the building. Below, the main entrance, including the porte cochere and the patio in front of it.
Thanks to Bodega Film Lab for developing the film and making it worth taking the Retinette out for a walk.
Tasso Katselas designed this apartment building, which opened in 1959. James D. Van Trump described it a few years later: “Glass, brick and concrete cage raised into space on arched stilts in the manner of Le Corbusier and at the time it was built the most ‘advanced’ apartment house in Pittsburgh.”
The drama of the building is in those arched stilts. They make approaching the building from the street an event. In typical Katselas fashion, they also solve a practical problem: they make room for a useful porte cochere while allowing the rest of the building to take up as much of its lot as possible.
Tasso Katselas designed the Carnegie Science Center, which is being renamed for the Kamins after a huge donation. The picture above is combined from two separate photographs.
Built in 1970, this apartment building was designed by Tasso Katselas, and to old Pa Pitt’s eye it is one of his most pleasing designs. The landscaping has matured to make the setting picturesque, and the materials of the building blend well with its setting. On a block of Kentucky Avenue that includes every kind of architecture, this building fits with every kind of architecture.
Since we saw the Washington Square apartments from the Florida Avenue side a few days ago, it would almost be neglectful to leave out the Washington Road face of the complex. It makes an attempt to fit into an urban streetscape by setting the high-rise apartment tower back from the street, with a low row of shops or offices in front along the sidewalk.
In Father Pitt’s opinion, the attempt is not entirely successful. The modernist style of the shops is uninviting in the most unfortunate sense: it is hard to tell how one is supposed to get into them. Is the entrance in front, or do we drive into a parking lot between them and enter from the lot? But wait—the drive between the shops is an exit only. Can we find the entrance? Should we find the entrance?
Because of the precipitous lot, the Washington Avenue side of the main building is shorter than the Florida Avenue side by several floors.
