Father Pitt

Tag: Tennyson & Van Wart

  • Skyscraper Apartments for the Postwar Era

    Doubletree Hotel
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    This was one of the major developments in postwar Pittsburgh—a $5,500,000 skyscraper apartment house financed by the FHA. Tennyson & Van Wart were the architects—a partnership of Arthur Tennyson, of Mount Lebanon, and John Van Wart, a successful New York architect who had been lured here in the 1930s by a job with Westinghouse. For many decades it has been a hotel under various owners, currently as the Doubletree.

    From the Pittsburgh Press, March 3, 1950.

    “The Federal Housing Administration has insured a mortgage loan to build a 19-story, H-shaped structure on Webster Ave. on the site of St. Mary’s High School and Home for Girls at Webster Ave. and Tunnel St,” the Press reported.

    “It will cost approximately $5½ million and provide housing for 465 families. Construction is expected to begin in June and be completed by June, 1951.”

    Mr. Van Wart died unexpectedly in June of 1950, while this building was under construction. Tennyson continued the practice alone, and would end up designing many more modernist apartment blocks in the Pittsburgh area. We’ll see more of his work.

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  • The Royalton, Mount Lebanon

    Royalton
    Royalton plaque

    Le Corbusier introduced the world to the idea of the cruciform apartment building. He regarded the form as so perfect, in fact, that he proposed demolishing Paris and replacing it with a sea of cross-shaped towers.

    In Pittsburgh, cruciform buildings were a bit of a fad in the late 1940s and early 1950s, probably encouraged by the national attention lavished on Gateway Center. They do have certain advantages. A cross-shaped building can give every apartment cross-ventilation and a view of open spaces, while still putting quite a bit of building on a small lot.

    Tennyson and Van Wart were among the architects who picked up on the idea. Alfred Tennyson was a Mount Lebanon architect who would continue with a very prosperous career in the second half of the twentieth century. John Van Wart, as half of the partnership of Van Wart & Wein, had been responsible for some big projects in New York in the 1920s and early 1930s; in the middle 1930s, he moved to Pittsburgh to work for Westinghouse, and then formed a promising partnership with Tennyson. His unexpected death in 1950, probably while this building was under construction, put an end to the partnership, and Tennyson went on alone.

    Royalton apartments

    The style is typical postwar modernism, but not pure modernism. A few little decorative details, like the subtle quoins, give the modernism a slight Georgian flavor.

    Entrance
    Entrance
    200

    The scalloped woodwork, if it is not a later addition, must have been one of those details added to persuade prospective tenants that this building was, after all, respectably Colonial enough not to embarrass them.

    Royalton apartments
    Entrance
    From the garage end

    As with many Pittsburgh buildings, the question of how many floors this one has is a complicated one. The answer varies between three and six, depending on how you look at it.

    From the lower end

    Cameras: Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6; Canon PowerShot SX150.