Author documents Henry Hornbostel’s architectural legacy

Friday, October 18, 2002

Henry Hornbostel’s legacy climbs along the hills of the Carnegie Mellon University campus in Oakland to the peak of the Grant Building, Downtown. It provides a theater for politics at the City-County Building, a resting spot for tired visitors at the Webster Hall hotel in Oakland and a home for families from Squirrel Hill to Monroeville.

“Henry Hornbostel is a man you don’t want to forget,” says Walter C. Kidney, architectural historian from the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, and author of the first book on the architect (1867-1961), titled “Henry Hornbostel: An Architect’s Master Touch” (published by the foundation in cooperation with Roberts Rinehart Publishers, $49.95).

The 272-page volume is the impetus for tours and book signings that will draw attention to the work of an architect whose buildings are Pittsburgh landmarks. It contains 470 illustrations, including 200 color photographs.

Although Hornbostel created buildings and other architectural works throughout the United States, no other city has the same “critical mass” of works by him, says Martin Aurand, architectural archivist at Carnegie Mellon.

According to Kidney, Hornbostel’s 110 works in this area are about half of his total output.

This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. © The Tribune-Review Publishing Co