Category Archive: Architecture & Architects

1. Council delays vote on status of historic North Side shelter

   July 17, 2008 10:35 am

   By The Tribune-Review
   Thursday, July 17, 2008

   Pittsburgh City Council delayed a vote Wednesday on whether to give historic protection to a North Side building that serves as a Salvation Army homeless shelter and chapel.
   The Salvation Army wants to demolish the 81-year-old building, which once served as the headquarters of the Ancient and Illustrious Order of the Knights of Malta, a social and community service club.

   The Mexican War Streets Society and North Side historic preservationists want to save the building because they believe its removal would ruin the historic character of the neighborhood. Council could consider the matter in two weeks.

2. Councilman protests forced preservation of Malta Temple

   July 15, 2008 3:14 pm

   By Jeremy Boren
   TRIBUNE-REVIEW
   Tuesday, July 15, 2008 

   Forcing the Salvation Army to preserve an 81-year-old North Side religious and social services center would violate a city rule that says a church’s owner — not interlopers — must willingly seek historic protection, a Pittsburgh councilman said Monday.”Churches have an inherent right to have control over their own property,” said the Rev. Ricky Burgess, a councilman and pastor of Nazarene Baptist Church in Homewood. “They have autonomy in terms of seeking historic designation.”

   To back up his claim, Burgess cited a 2003 amendment to the city’s historic preservation law sponsored by then-Councilman Bob O’Connor.

   The amendment states: “Nomination of a religious structure shall only be made by the owner(s) of record of the religious structure.”

   A religious structure is defined as a “place of religious worship.”O’Connor fought for the amendment under the belief that some churches can’t afford to make repairs or facade improvements to comply with historic preservation standards.

   Burgess said Sunday church services have been held regularly for nearly 35 years in the Salvation Army-owned property commonly known as the Malta Temple building because it is the former headquarters of the Ancient and Illustrious Order of the Knights of Malta.

   The nonprofit Mexican War Street Society, a historic preservation group, nominated the Malta Temple for historic protection in January to prevent the Salvation Army from demolishing it.

   The city Planning Commission and Historic Review Commission approved the nomination. It faces a preliminary vote Wednesday before City Council.

   David McMunn, president of the society, said the Malta Temple is zoned as a commercial structure, not as a church. Allegheny County assessment records confirm that.

   McMunn said tearing down the stately brick building at 100 W. North Ave. and replacing it with a modern building nearby would remove an important thread from the North Side’s already frayed historic fabric.

   McMunn and other historic preservationists want the building to be renovated.

   “The Salvation Army has first and foremost been a place of worship,” said Maj. Jim LaBossiere, Allegheny County coordinator for the organization.

   LaBossiere agreed with Burgess’ argument.

   He said religious services are held at 9:30 and 11:30 every Sunday morning in the Malta Temple building. The center doubles as a daytime homeless shelter where the indigent can receive lunch, counseling and use shower and laundry facilities.

   Salvation Army officials have said previously that renovations would be too costly and that the building isn’t large enough to accommodate plans for additional worship, classroom, gymnasium and computer lab space.

   “They don’t seem to see the need to partner with the neighborhood,” McMunn said. “Well, they need to because, as residents, we’re here forever.”

    

    

   Jeremy Boren can be reached at jboren@tribweb.comor 412-765-2312.

3. Buhl Building ready for its closeup

   July 4, 2008 9:45 am

    

   Friday, July 04, 2008

   By Patricia Lowry,

   Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

   

   The Buhl Building long has been one of Downtown’s unsung background buildings, a fantasy in blue and white that you could only enjoy by craning your neck up, up, up. No more.

   Since the demolition of buildings in the triangle where Fifth and Liberty avenues meet, the Buhl Building has taken on a cameo role in the Market Square city historic district. Its new visibility promises to be long-lasting because PNC, which is putting up the glass and steel tower across Fifth Avenue, won’t build on the triangle and instead will develop it as a small park.

   Completed in 1913, the Buhl Building at 200 Fifth Ave. is clad in classical terra-cotta ornament, but not the usual cream-on-cream variety. The architect, Janssen & Abbott, called for blue and cream glazed tiles, and it’s a tour de force of urns, swags, plates and cartouches — a tapestry of Wedgwood Jasperware on a grand scale.

   “How improbable this large-windowed but narrow six-story Renaissance Revival office tower must have seemed, covered in blue and white tile like an Italianate wedding cake in a then dark and sooty city,” former Post-Gazette art and architecture critic Donald Miller wrote in his 1997 book, “The Architecture of Benno Janssen.”

   The client was Schenley Farms developer Franklin Nicola, and it was first called the Nicola Building. In the same few years, between 1909 and 1916, Janssen’s firm also was designing the Pittsburgh Athletic Association, Masonic Temple, William Penn Hotel and another terra-cotta building — a 13-story addition to Kaufmann’s department store.

   By as early as 1923, the Nicola Building had a new owner — Henry Buhl Jr., partner in Boggs & Buhl department store on the North Side and founder of the Buhl Foundation. By the 1960s, if not earlier, the first-floor exterior had been renovated in dark, stark granite, so at street level there’s no hint of what we imagine was a light and lively original treatment. What a lift it must have been to walk along Fifth Avenue and see the hand of the craftsman.

   But whose work was it? Were the tiles stock patterns made distinctive by the dichromatic glazing, or were they, more likely, custom-designed for the building by one of Janssen’s draftsmen? By 1909 there were about 15 makers of architectural terra cotta in the eastern United States. There’s no definitive proof in the Janssen papers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Architecture Archives, so we may never know.

   A cream terra-cotta-clad building on the opposite side of Fifth Avenue, originally the Reymer’s Building, was demolished to make way for the PNC tower, so there is some karmic balance in the revelation of the Buhl Building — and more reason than ever to return its first floor to something closer to the original.

   “Our intention is to remove the granite and put back the tall windows,” which were arched, said Nick Nicholas, who bought the building with Jim Patrinos in December.

   The challenge is what to do with the upper floors, said Nicholas, who also owns Nicholas Coffee in Market Square.

   They are considering office space or apartments or perhaps a combination of the two, but they may have to wait for the market to come to them. The Buhl Building is on the National Register of Historic Places, so the project will benefit from a 20 percent federal tax credit. The owners have given Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation an easement on the facade, so it’s protected in perpetuity.

   “If we restore it to a boutique building, it could be the best little boutique building Downtown, but how do we get small upscale businesses to take it?” Nicholas said. “You’ve got to almost wait until PNC and Murphy’s are done and maybe they’ll be knocking on our door for space there.”

   Millcraft Industries soon will begin to convert the former G.C. Murphy Co. store into 46 apartments, a relocated YMCA and first-floor retail space.

   

   Architecture critic Patricia Lowry can be reached at plowry@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1590.

   First published on July 4, 2008 at 12:00 am

    

4. Public Hearing on St. Mary’s Academy Building

   July 2, 2008 5:38 pm

   PREPARED TESTIMONY OF

   ANNE E. NELSON, ESQ.

   GENERAL COUNSEL

   PITTSBURGH HISTORY & LANDMARKS FOUNDATION

   BEFORE HISTORIC REVIEW COMMISSION, CITY OF PITTSBURGH

   PUBLIC HEARING ON ST. MARY’S ACADEMY BUILDING

   CITY HISTORIC STRUCTURE NOMINATION

   JULY 2, 2008

    

   Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation (Landmarks) strongly supports the nomination of the Academy Building of the St. Mary’s Church complex to become a City-Designated Historic Structure.

   The St. Mary’s Academy Building was listed on the first county-wide architectural survey conducted in the United States, undertaken by Landmarks in 1966, and chosen as one of the buildings published in Landmark Architecture of Allegheny County Pennsylvania by James D. Van Trump and Arthur P. Ziegler, Jr.  The Academy Building was also listed in 1979 in the second countywide survey of historic architectural sites conducted by Landmarks, in association with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  It was chosen for inclusion as one of 600 out of the 10,000 surveyed in the major book based on this survey, Pittsburgh’s Landmark Architecture by Walter C. Kidney, published in 1997.  Both Van Trump and Kidney consider the Greek Revival c. 1850 Academy Building a significant surviving example of an important American architectural style.  Furthermore, its “curious ornamental cast iron porch” is “the sort usually associated with New Orleans or Mobile although once common too in the industrial North.” 

   In 1989 historian Roger Kennedy noted in his National Trust book Greek Revival America:  “The Northern Greek Revival was at least as vigorous and diverse as that in the antebellum South; but all the great houses of the North … have fallen victim to that region’s industrial success.”   This is also true of banks, courthouses, and modest Greek Revival structures like St. Mary’s Academy, and we should protect the limited number of survivors.

   Of the buildings in the St. Mary’s Church complex, the Academy Building is not only the oldest, but is the most architecturally unique and should, therefore, be deemed a City-Historic Structure.  

5. Cathedral of Learning trumpets education

   June 30, 2008 9:26 am

   By Bill Zlatos
   TRIBUNE-REVIEW
   Sunday, June 29, 2008 

   The Cathedral of Learning was constructed of Indiana limestone and built with the pennies, nickel and dimes of area schoolchildren.John G. Bowman, then chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, came up with the idea for a tower in 1921.

   “He wanted a tall building because his intention was the children of working men and women of Pittsburgh would see the tower and be inspired to get an education,” said Albert Tannler, historical collections director at the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.

   

   But there was the issue of money. The cost of the building was estimated at $10 million to $15 million, a hefty sum in those days.

   In 1925, Marcus Aaron, chairman of the city’s board of education, summoned the district’s teachers to start a “Buy a Brick” campaign. The teachers told students to give 10 cents to Pitt and tell the university how they earned it. The children would get a certificate indicating they owned a piece of the building.As a result, 97,000 certificates were issued.    

   Parents also gave. In 1926, Bowman went to a meeting of steelworkers and their families in Carnegie to promote his tower.

   “A woman stood up with a baby in her arms and said, ‘We got no money, but we’ll go without meat for a week and give you that money.’ Then a man stood up and said, ‘I’ll wear this suit another year and give you the money,’ ” said Maxine Bruhns, director of Pitt’s Nationality Rooms and Intercultural Exchange Programs, who is working on a DVD, “The Story Behind the Construction of the Cathedral of Learning.”

   The cathedral is home to 27 Nationality Rooms, which showcase the culture of the ethnic groups that built Pittsburgh.

   The steel skeleton of the building was erected in 1929. After the stock market crashed, the 52-story design was shortened to 40. Still, it was the tallest academic building in the world when it was finished in 1937. It remains the biggest in the United States.

   “It was a triumph,” Bruhns said, “symbolizing that those parallel lines going skyward never meet and education never ends.”

    

    

   Bill Zlatos can be reached at bzlatos@tribweb.com or 412-320-7828. 

    

6. $80 million Schenley tab challenged

   June 27, 2008 4:01 pm

   By Christian Morrow
   June 27, 2008
   The New Pittsburgh Courier

   Roosevelt sticks with his numbers Whether or not a proposed school district referendum on saving Schenley High School referenced estimates to renovate the Reizenstein, Milliones and Frick buildings, the school’s supporters say it unfairly pits Schenley against the rest of the district by using an inflated repair figure for the 92-year-old building. “This is not a $74 million question of whether to save Schenley or not,” said Vivian Loftness, Carnegie Mellon University architecture professor, in a letter to the school board. “The question is, ‘should we repair and upgrade a grand, crafted school building that has 50-100 years left, or should we repair and upgrade buildings with 20 years of life left, sinking our tax dollars into oblivion?’” The district-wide referendum was created by solicitor Ira Weiss and school board director Theresa Colaizzi after the New Pittsburgh Courier reported that two engineers and a former Schenley principal said there is no asbestos or structural danger at the building, and repair estimates include costs for fixing problems that do not exist. The issue was on the agenda for the school board’s June 23 meeting, but Colaizzi stormed out when one engineer, Nick Lardas, was allowed to speak. Lardas repeated what he and fellow engineer Jet Lafean told the Courier—that the building is as safe as any in the system. Roosevelt said that Lardas’ engineering credentials don’t stack up to the district’s experts. “Mr. Lardas is a reputable contractor,” said Superintendent Mark Roosevelt. “He is not an expert in the field.” Lardas said he never claimed to be an asbestos expert. “I’m not making an analysis, I’m reading from their report,” he said. “I never put myself out there as an asbestos expert, but I do have enough expertise to read a report.” Reiterating numbers Roosevelt revealed during a November press conference, officials said samples from the plaster failures in the building revealed asbestos levels “two to six times the acceptable limit.” Though he was unable to attend, Lafean, experienced in handling asbestos as well as more dangerous agents such as plutonium, said the district’s own documents show that to be false. “Their reports show all of the plaster samples submitted for testing to Wiss, Janney Elstner Associates in Cleveland, Ohio, came back as containing 00.00 percent asbestos,” he said. “The lab also told Roosevelt all the samples were from recent patches and none were the original plaster he has been falsely telling the public is falling from the sky,” School Board member Randall Taylor pointed out that temporarily moving Schenley’s science program to Westinghouse—where there is already a lab—and putting the remaining students in Peabody—where there is space, would allow time to renovate Schenley. “It would save about $25 million from the cost of renovating Milliones, Reizenstein and Frick,” he said. “If those costs are in the $50 million to $60 million range—how can we afford that and not Schenley?” He did not receive an answer. Celeste Taylor, parent of a Schenley student, said Lardas was “No. 1 in her book” for putting his reputation at stake, but believes the majority of the board will follow Roosevelt’s recommendation to close Schenley. “Who are their constituents—us/students or the superintendent/foundations,” she said. “I feel the future of our school district has a very large gray cloud above it and I don’t see it moving away anytime soon. I sincerely hope I am wrong.” The board is scheduled to vote on the closing next month. (Send comments to cmorrow@newpittsburghcourier.com.)

7. School board votes to close Schenley building

   June 26, 2008 4:29 pm

   Thursday, June 26, 2008

   By Joe Smydo,
   Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

   The Pittsburgh school board last night voted 5-4 to close the Pittsburgh Schenley High School building, rejecting a proposed referendum on the issue and saddening school supporters who spent months fighting to save the historic structure.

   Voting to close Schenley were board members Heather Arnet, Theresa Colaizzi, Jean Fink, Floyd McCrea and President Bill Isler. Voting no were Mark Brentley Sr., Sherry Hazuda, Thomas Sumpter and Randall Taylor. The vote followed another in a string of emotional debates about whether the building could be spared.

   “The closing and the destruction of Schenley High School — the public’s not going to forget this,” said Mr. Taylor.

   The 92-year-old landmark that graduated artist Andy Warhol, jazz great George Benson and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Clifford Shull, among other notable names in sundry fields, will close June 30. Staff members already had packed equipment and supplies for use at other school buildings.

   The board left open the possibility of reopening Schenley one day by forming a committee to investigate future uses for the building and how to pay for renovations.

   “It remains to be seen whether Schenley will rise again,” Mr. Sumpter said.

   The board’s action did not satisfy Schenley supporters. “There was no reason to vote to close Schenley,” said Highland Park resident Jill Weiss.

   In October, Superintendent Mark Roosevelt proposed closing Schenley at the end of the school year, saying the district couldn’t afford to address asbestos and other maintenance problems.

   At the time, Mr. Roosevelt said renovations would cost about $64 million.

   He increased the estimate to $76.2 million May 19, after consulting with a fourth architect, and in recent days had put the cost at more than $80 million.

   Mr. Roosevelt said the district must commit its money to academic improvement, not bricks and mortar, and he maintained the district is stretched to the financial limit with increasing costs, flat revenues and previous debt.

   The proposal to close Schenley and replace it with new schools drew an outcry from school supporters, who scrutinized architects’ reports and concluded the building’s needs weren’t as serious, or the potential cost as high, as Mr. Roosevelt had indicated.

   Supporters argued that the building could be renovated for about $40 million, and they bitterly opposed Mr. Roosevelt’s claim that students couldn’t remain in the building during a renovation project.

   Civil-rights and neighborhood groups united to save Schenley. Supporters packed public hearings, lobbied board members and tried to get City Council to intervene in the dispute.

   The building has been the touchstone for a larger debate about the direction in which Mr. Roosevelt is leading the district.

   Parents asked why Mr. Roosevelt would dismantle a school with a happy, diverse, high-performing student body, suggesting that Schenley instead should be a model for reform district-wide.

   Supporters have skewered the new schools Mr. Roosevelt has proposed in place of Schenley, such as questioning the efficacy of the middle-high school concept he wants to make a district staple and claiming a university-partnership school in the Hill District will promote segregation.

   Believing a majority of voters wouldn’t want to go into debt to save one building, Mrs. Colaizzi last week proposed a referendum on the issue. But the board ultimately chose to make the decision itself.

   The fallout of the Schenley debate remains unclear.

   At a time when Mr. Roosevelt is trying to sustain community support for a broad range of academic and financial initiatives, the Schenley fight alienated numerous parents, including some who have threatened to pull their children from a district already struggling from plummeting enrollment.

   The debate also conflicted a school board that has strived to remain focused on Mr. Roosevelt’s improvement efforts .

   Schenley’s remaining 10th-, 11th- and 12th-graders will attend classes at the Reizenstein building in Shadyside and remain together — as Schenley students — until their classes graduate.

   Future ninth-graders will go to the university-partnership school, a new International Baccalaureate school or Pittsburgh Peabody High School. Assignment will be based on students’ neighborhood or magnet preference.

   Joe Smydo can be reached at jsmydo@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1548.

   First published on June 26, 2008 at 12:00 am

8. Hot Metal Bridge Lighted

   June 13, 2008 2:19 pm

   PHLF News
   June 13, 2008

   

   

   

   

   Governor Edward G. Rendell, accompanied by Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, activated the lighting of the portals of the Hot Metal Bridge, as it is commonly called today, at 8:15 p.m., Thursday, June 12, 2008. 

   

   The ceremony took place at the Steelworkers’ Monument on the South Bank of the Monongahela River.  This was the third bridge decoratively lighted under the auspices of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation (Landmarks).  The first was the Smithfield Street Bridge and the second was the Roberto Clemente Bridge.

   

   Actually, the portal lighting decorates the Main Bridge (Monongahela Connecting Railroad Bridge), constructed in 1904 and opened to motor vehicles in 2000. The Hot Metal Bridge of 1900 (opened to bicycles and pedestrians in 2007) replaced the original Hot Metal Bridge of 1887. With the opening of Hot Metal Street in South Side Works, the name “Hot Metal Bridge” is now commonly used to refer to the historic bridge pair that is built on a shared set of piers.

   

   

   Historically, hot metal––iron just smelted in a blast furnace and still close to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit—was transported in ladle cars from the blast furnaces on the north shore of Jones & Laughlin’s Pittsburgh Works across the Hot Metal Bridge of 1900 to the Bessemer converters and open-hearth furnaces of the South Side Plant. The Main Bridge of 1904 served the general purposes of the Monongahela Connecting Railroad, including the transportation of steel ingots and slabs.

   The bridge lighting is LED tubular lighting in orange, red, and yellow, suggesting the colors of the hot metal and steel slabs that were once transported across the bridges.

   

   Grenald Waldron Associates of Philadelphia designed the lighting for the bridge as they did for the Roberto Clemente Bridge.  Courtney Sarge was the principal designer. 

   The Governor said, “Grenald has done excellent work once again, we are delighted to see Landmarks utilizing Pennsylvania designers and Pittsburgh contractors for the work that they do with bridge lighting.”

   Funding for the project came primarily from a grant from the Department of Community and Economic Development at the Governor’s request.  That grant totaled $125,000.  Design of the lighting was financed by grants from the Soffer Corporation, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Wellington Power, and Landmarks totaling $12,500. Landmarks also underwrote an additional $15,000 of costs for the project, bringing the total to approximately $150,000.

   
   

   Mayor Ravenstahl pointed out, “This is another fine public-private accomplishment in our goal to make Pittsburgh a uniquely attractive city by capitalizing on our historic assets.  We thank the Governor and Landmarks and our city team for bringing about this excellent result.

   

   Mark Bibro, Chair of Landmarks, said, “We are grateful that we have a governor who understands the significance of lighting these great engineering monuments to promote their continued use and increase tourism.  We are the ‘City of Bridges,’ with 446 bridges (based on the most recent count) within the City limits, and hundreds more throughout Allegheny County.  We must continue this lighting program.

   

   

   

   
   

   Founded in 1964, the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation works to identify and save architectural landmarks; revitalize historic neighborhoods; and instill community pride. Visit www.phlf.org or call 412-471-5808 for information about preservation services, educational programs, and membership benefits.

    

    

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