Father Pitt

Tag: Terra Cotta

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 Motor Co., Oakland

[Update: This article has been thoroughly revised with information about the architect and date, with thanks to David Schwing.] Continuing our visits to car dealers of the past, we come to the Samson dealer. 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 building was put up in about 1918, as the automobile business was passing from big business to colossus of American industry. The architect was probably R. Maurice Trimble, who was hired to design a building here when the Samson Motor Company bought the land. The only uncertainty is that the building was announced as a four-storey structure, but plans often shrink on the way to execution.

The front is a feast of terra-cotta details.

Gazette Times, January 30, 1918: “One of the finest buildings devoted to the automobile business in the city will result from a sale closed recently, whereby the Atlantic Land Company has sold to H. Samson a plot of ground approximately 91×218 feet on the north side of Baum boulevard near Melwood street. The plot is in the heart of the automobile district and is situated between the Atlantic Refining Company’s building and the Kaufmann & Baer garage. The consideration was $30,000. The proposed building will be constructed over the design of Architect R. M. Trimble, bids to be received next month. It will be a brick, concrete and steel structure covering the entire plot and will cost $150,000. It is understood that the deal was negotiated by George Bros.” The 1923 Hopkins map shows 4643 Baum Boulevard belonging to Samson Motor Co., with the Atlantic Refining Co. gas station on one side and the Kaufmann & Baer garage on the other.

September 17, 2022
Renshaw Building

The Renshaw Building at Liberty Avenue and Ninth Street was built in 1910, with an extra floor added to the top at some time in the modernistic era. It’s a perfect miniature skyscraper, with base, shaft, cap, and the outlined bosses’ floor above the main floor. There are some good terra-cotta decorations, especially around the Ninth Street entrance.

September 15, 2022