DELIRIOUS PITTSBURGH: Over the Hump
This is the second of a three-part lecture series.
Tuesday, August 25
6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
The University Club
123 University Place
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
(Parking: metered street parking available and in the garage at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum.)
$30 per person
Purchase a ticket below. This event is limited to 30 participants.
Pittsburgh is a city of hills that we have embraced, altered, or destroyed in many ways. Grant’s Hill was a dominant landscape feature that loomed over the early European settlement, but it was lowered and removed in a remarkable sequence of civil engineering campaigns with the city’s growth into the early 1900s. It provides a vivid commentary on Pittsburgh’s society, landscape, and architecture. If you dig in just a little.
With the disappearance of a major hill, downtown monuments underwent substantial re-configurations to lower their entrances, aided by builders who knew changes were coming. Small shop owners, meanwhile, were often left quite literally high and dry, depending on their financial resources, as excavations caused the street level to plummet in front of their entries.
Horsedrawn carriages traveled more easily, and so did regular pedestrians. Meanwhile, the landscape of seemingly distant Oakland also changed as the removed dirt had to be placed somewhere. Pittsburgh was a city of cuts and fills.
About the presenter: Charles Rosenblum is a journalist, critic, and scholar writing about architecture, art and other aspects of visual culture. As an academic, he taught history and theory of architecture at Carnegie Mellon University and other institutions in Western Pennsylvania for twenty years. As a writer, his work has appeared regularly in publications including Pittsburgh City Paper, Next Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Quarterly, earning numerous awards. He has written for national outlets including Architectural Record, Architects’ Newspaper, Preservation, and Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly. He has also been a regular contributor to books and publications of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. Charles earned his Ph.D. in Architectural History from the University of Virginia writing about the architecture of Henry Hornbostel.
Explore the University Club Building.
Join us for this special lecture in the library of the historic University Club, an 8-story classical-style limestone building in the heart of Oakland. Built in 1923, it was designed by the prominent American architect Henry Hornbostel, and is now a contributing resource to the Schenley Farms National Register Historic District.
As part of this event, we will tour the building, which is owned by the University of Pittsburgh and features a grand lobby with a curved staircase, a ballroom with a 600-pound crystal chandelier, tall ceilings, library, a rooftop deck, and 10-foot-tall windows with sweeping views of the University campus.
Snacks & light refreshments will be served.
