Father Pitt

Tag: Universities

  • Laval House, Duquesne University

    Laval house, front

    Duquesne University has overrun many blocks that were once crowded Bluff streets. The Academic Walk follows the course of what used to be Vickroy Street, and by almost random chance two Bluff rowhouses have been preserved in beautiful condition by the Spiritan Campus Ministry. In fact, on Google Maps we find that their address is still 952 Vickroy Street, even though they are the only remaining trace of Vickroy Street. In the 1800s, their neighbor used to be a brickyard, so the neighborhood has improved since they were built.

    A mural on the side.

  • The Mall, Carnegie Mellon University

    Many styles of buildings have been put up on the campus since Henry Hornbostel laid out the original plan for Carnegie Tech, but it’s remarkable how much the original Hornbostel plan has been respected. The campus is still built around these broad open green spaces, with the various buildings kept within matching heights and setbacks, even when they are in wildly different styles.

    The Mall, Carnegie Mellon University, looking toward Hammerschlag Hall

  • Berry Hall, Chatham University

    Built in 1895, this is one of several magnificent private houses that have come into the possession of Chatham University without drastic architectural modification. The exterior is in an exceptionally accurate Georgian style that would be right at home in Annapolis or Williamsburg.

  • Bell Tower, Duquesne University Chapel

    This cupola on top of the chapel still has a working bell, never replaced by loudspeakers. That is an unusual thing in Pittsburgh.

  • Mellon Hall, Duquesne University

    Richard King Mellon Hall of Science

    The Richard King Mellon Hall of Science was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and is therefore a black box on stilts. Old Pa Pitt sometimes makes fun of Mies’ black boxes on stilts, but he means it good-naturedly. The colonnades of stilts have a job, and they do it well. They humanize some inhumanly large buildings by creating a human-sized interface between building and street. They also create an expansive outdoor space that is out of the rain and snow, but still open to the world. Here we see a good use of that space, with tables being set up for graduation festivities.

    In the colonnade
    Among the stilts

  • College of Fine Arts, Carnegie Mellon University

    Front of the building

    Built to be an inspiring showcase of the world’s best traditions in art, the College of Fine Arts building was positioned at the top of the Mall, as if the arts might be of some importance even in a technical school.

    Looking up the stairs
    Oblique view

    Niches along the front of the building pay tribute to various architectural and sculptural traditions.

    Corinthian, Doric, Ionic
    Gothic
    Egyptian, Moorish, Indian
    Interior
    Interior
    Through the trees

  • Baker Hall, Carnegie Mellon University

    Baker Hall from the Mall.

    From the beginning, the campus of Carnegie Tech was designed by Palmer and Hornbostel as a warren of interconnected buildings surrounding pleasant green spaces. The older buildings, like Baker Hall, celebrate the engineering and architecture they were designed to teach. Old Pa Pitt particularly loves this stairwell window, which expresses the idea of stairs with a clarity that modernist architects of a later generation would not have been able to match.

    Frew Street side of Baker Hall.

  • Lindsay House, Chatham University

    One of several mansions that have become part of Chatham University, this tasteful Tudor house is comparatively modest against its neighbors the Mellons and the Reas.

    Addendum: We find from the June 1911 issue of The Builder that this was built as the President’s Home for the Pennsylvania College for Women. The architect was Thomas Hannah. Here are two pictures from the magazine:

  • Hamerschlag Hall, Carnegie Mellon University

    Hamerschlag Hall

    Hamerschlag Hall, the centerpiece and symbol of Carnegie Mellon University, was named for the first president of the Carnegie Technical Schools, Arthur Hamerschlag. This was one of the original Carnegie Tech buildings designed by Palmer and Hornbostel, whose campus design has been followed surprisingly faithfully by succeeding generations of architects. It is perfectly positioned for a view down the Mall that captures the Cathedral of Learning, centerpiece and symbol of Pitt, looming in the background.

    With Oakland in the background
    With the Cathedral of Learning
    Through the trees

  • Alumnae Memorial Window, Chatham University

    A window by Louis Comfort Tiffany, donated to the Pennsylvania Female College (now Chatham) in 1888. The figure is taken from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling: the Erythraean Sibyl, “here transformed into a symbol for women’s education,” as a plaque nearby says. This was an early work of Tiffany’s, believed to be his earliest in the Pittsburgh area. It was put away in about 1930 and sat in storage for seventy years, because who needed a window by Tiffany? In 2000 it was finally brought out of storage—old Pa Pitt imagines a janitor starting the ball rolling by saying, “Hey, can we get this thing out of the way?”—and restored for a place in the science building.

    Note that Shakespeare’s name appears twice in the pantheon of great figures every young lady should know. No one else gets that honor, and—though Shakespeare certainly is worth twice as much as any of the others to an English-speaking college student—one wonders who specified the duplication, or even whether it was intentional.