Father Pitt

Tag: Terra Cotta

Art Nouveau Apartment Building in Allentown

You walk up Walter Street past the usual Hilltop cacophony of vernacular houses with aluminum and vinyl siding, and then suddenly you come upon this explosion of Art Nouveau. The building has lost its balconies (a long time ago, to judge by that tattered aluminum awning) and its cornice, but it retains its utter uniqueness, right down to the balcony doors to nowhere on the second and third floors, which appear to be original and designed specifically for this building rather than ordered from a catalogue.

This strange and wonderful little building is obviously the work of a strange and wonderful architect. But which one? It was built after 1903 but before 1910, and we are sorely tempted to attribute it to Titus de Bobula, whose entire Pittsburgh career blossomed and faded in that period. The treatment of the decorations strongly reminds old Pa Pitt of the Everett Apartments in Shadyside—in fact the decorations are so similar that Father Pitt is nearly convinced they have to be by the same architect. He is not the only one to notice the similarity. A city architecture inventory (PDF) also points it out: “Its similarity to another apartment building in the East End (at Ellsworth Avenue and Copeland Street in Shadyside) further sets the design of 404 Walter apart from the local vernacular found throughout the rest of Allentown.”

To see what both Father Pitt and the city’s architecture experts are talking about, consider these decorations:

Now compare this decoration from the Everett in Shadyside:

The similarity is certainly marked; many of the pieces are identical. Since the Everett is attributed to Titus de Bobula, we are justified in saying that he is a strong possibility for this one, too.

Another De Bobulesque feature is the lack of a main entrance: instead there is a small door off to one side that appears to lead into a stairwell. This is also the case with his Glen Tenement House in Hazelwood and with the Everett. The narrow verticals with asymmetrically staggered windows remind us of St. Michael’s School in Braddock, another De Bobula design (Father Pitt promises to make a pilgrimage to Braddock soon and come back with pictures).

Father Pitt will regard this as a De Bobula building until someone proves otherwise. But he would be delighted to have someone prove otherwise, because then he would be introduced to another eccentric but talented architect.

September 27, 2023
Werner Building, East Liberty
This beautiful building has a long and varied history. It seems to have been built a little before 1910 by a dry-cleaning company.¹ After a while the East Liberty Chamber of Commerce moved in to preside over the slow decline of East Liberty. In 2001, when the East Liberty revival was barely beginning, the Werner Building became a performance-art space. Now, with East Liberty booming, it’s a profitable property.

The metalwork on top supported a billboard where artists spelled out messages, but in 2018 one artist posted a message so offensive that the building’s owner had it removed and shut down the billboard scheme. What was this offensive message? “THERE ARE BLACK PEOPLE IN THE FUTURE.” That was all. Father Pitt can only say that, if you are offended by the idea that there are Black people in the future, then you can go off and get yourself your own future, because old Pa Pitt does not want to be part of it.

The whole building is lavishly festooned with terra cotta and stained glass.
1. Addendum: The architect was Frederick Sauer, and the building was probably finished in 1908. “Among the Architects,” Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, June 11, 1907: “The same architect [Sauer] is taking bids for a four-story store and office building to be erected for Oswald Werner on 58×140 feet at Baum street and Highland avenue, East End. The building, which will be constructed of white enameled terra cotta, will cost about $60.000. It is expected to have it completed by April 1, 1908.” The building as it stands is two floors, although it looks as though it might have been designed for additional floors later. The white enameled terra cotta, however, is distinctive. And there’s no doubt about the owner, who is immortalized in terra cotta. Sauer had also designed a house for Oswald Werner in 1891, which still stands in Highland Park today. ↩︎
August 28, 2023
The Liberty Theater As It Was Built
Update: Once in a while old Pa Pitt has a chance to boast about his architectural instincts, and here is one of those occasions. In the original article, he wrote that he suspected Edward B Lee of having designed the remodeling of the theater into an office building. He was right. Source: The American Contractor, December 15, 1923: “Store & Office Bldg. (remod. from theater): $150,000. 5 sty. & bas. H. tile. Liberty av. & Strawberry Alley. Archt. E. B. Lee, Chamber of Commerce bldg. Owner The Fidelity Title & Trust Co., Wilson A. Shaw, chrm. of bd., 343 Fourth av. Gen. contr. let to Cuthbert Bros., Bessemer bldg.”

The original text of Father Pitt’s article follows.

Edward B. Lee was the architect of the Liberty Theater—or Theatre, as theatrical people often insist on spelling it—when it was built in 1912. These pictures were published in The Brickbuilder in 1913, so they show the theater as it was when it was new. Either the theater failed or the owners decided it would be more profitable as an office building, because only eleven years later, in 1924,¹ it was remodeled into the Baum Building, and it still stands today.

The shell and outlines are the same, but quite a bit was changed externally. Old Pa Pitt suspects that Lee was the architect of these changes, too, and they were accomplished so elegantly that we would never know the building had not been planned that way from the beginning.

These small drawings (orchestra, first balcony, second balcony) show the aggressive adaptations Mr. Lee had to make to the irregular shape of the lot—a common difficulty for buildings on the southeast side of Liberty Avenue, where the two grids of the irrationally rationalistic eighteenth-century street plan collide.

Detail over the entrance. These decorations disappeared when the building was converted to offices.

Corner detail. The cornice and pilasters survive, but the elaborate terra-cotta decoration between the pilasters vanished in 1924.
1. In the original version of this article, Father Pitt had given the date as 1920, following a city architectural survey. The listing from the American Contractor proves that the date was actually no earlier than 1924. ↩︎
August 27, 2023
One Block of Sidney Street on the South Side

The 2100 block of Sidney Street has some of the finest high-Victorian houses on the South Side, and several of them have unusual decorative details worth a closer examination. Old Pa Pitt took an evening stroll down Sidney Street the other day and, as always, came back with a few pictures. We’ll start with No. 2109. Note the multiple shapes of roof slates, the woodwork in the dormers, and the rusticated lintels in the picture above.

Since we have fifteen pictures, we’ll put the rest below the fold to avoid slowing down the main page for a week.
(more…)

July 8, 2023
819 and 821 Penn Avenue

A pair of commercial buildings with striking terra-cotta details—especially No. 819, on the left. The huge windows would have allowed light to pour into workshops on the upper floors.

Truly enlightened zoning regulations would mandate cornices with lions’ heads on all buildings more than four storeys tall.

June 14, 2023
Terra-Cotta Decorations, Carnegie Mellon University

Henry Hornbostel was one of the first architects to employ polychrome terra cotta. Here are three different patterns from buildings at Carnegie Tech, now Carnegie Mellon University.

Thistles, in tribute to Andrew Carnegie’s Scottish pride.

June 11, 2023
The Ambassador, Bloomfield

This Art Deco apartment block was built in 1928 or shortly after. At first glance it looks like a simple rectangular modernist box, but a second glance reveals some rich decorative details.

The building is on Centre Avenue, which is a neighborhood border on city planning maps; thus it is technically in Bloomfield, but most Pittsburghers would probably say Shadyside.

Addendum: The architects were Marks & Kann, according to the Charette, the magazine of the Pittsburgh Architectural Club.

February 14, 2023
Meyer Jonasson & Co. Building

Now called just 606 Liberty Avenue, this was once a high-class department store. The odd-shaped building was designed by MacClure & Spahr, who gave us many distinguished buildings downtown. The odd shape was forced on this one by the oblique angle of the intersection of Liberty and Oliver Avenues. That last block of Oliver Avenue was later filled in to make PNC Plaza, but this building memorializes the intersection that used to be.

The front on both streets is covered—perhaps the appropriate word is festooned—with terra-cotta decorations. The style is a kind of fantasy Jacobean Renaissance, with wide arches coming to a very shallow not-quite point. Old James I only wished he could have buildings like this in his realm.

The arches reflected in Two PNC Plaza next door.

November 16, 2022
Lee School, Beechview

A small school by a distinguished architect: Charles M. Bartberger, who gave us several fine schools. (He is often confused with his father, Charles F. Bartberger, who designed some prominent churches.) The Lee School is now a retirement home under the name Gualtieri Manor.

The entrance is surrounded by tasteful terra-cotta ornamentation.

This pattern is called a Vitruvian wave, named for Vitruvius, the ancient Roman author whose manual on architecture became the arbiter of everything that was proper in design during the Renaissance.

The arms of the city of Pittsburgh over the entrance.

September 24, 2022
Samson Dealer, Oakland

Continuing our visits to car dealers of the past, we come to the Samson dealer. At least it seems to be a Samson dealer, although it could also be a Sampson dealer. Our 1923 map shows it as “Samson [sic] Motor Co.,’ but these maps are prone to slight misspellings. On the other hand, Sampson was a very rare brand of car, and this seems like a fairly grand dealer to be built for a rare marque. On the third hand, Samson was a brand of tractors and trucks in the early 1920s, and this looks like a rather classy building for a dealer in farm implements. At any rate, it was a motor-vehicle dealer of some sort. More recently it was a gallery of some sort, and now it is decaying, although part of the building appears to be still in use.

The front is a feast of terra-cotta details.

September 17, 2022