I was recently offered the opportunity of being a guest lecturer to our current Senior Design class. I immediately accepted, and chose to base it on the chapter on buildings that I wrote for the book “Engineering Pittsburgh”, published in 2018 by our local American Society of Civil Engineers Section.
There were engineers long before the term civil engineering was coined, primarily engaged in supporting military activities. It is not surprising that the first major engineering project in this area was a military one, the construction of Fort Pitt in 1758. Following General John Forbes’ successful campaign that year, Captain Harry Gordon, a British Engineer in the 60th Royal American Regiment, was assigned the task of building the new Fort Pitt.
The result was the largest military fortification in North American, a large pentagram with bastions at each vertex. The only thing left of it today is the Fort Pitt Blockhouse, constructed in 1764. A formidable brick redoubt, it is the oldest building still in existence in Pittsburgh.
Other eighteenth century buildings in this area still surviving include the Neil Log House (1765), in Schenley Park; the Old Stone Tavern (1782), in the West End; and the Presley Neville House (1785), in Collier Township.
In 1888 famed architect Henry Hobson Richardson designed the Allegheny County Courthouse, a classic example of the Romanesque Revival style. The top of its magnificent tower is 249 feet above ground level, which made it the tallest building in the city.
The “Skyscraper” concept began in Chicago in 1885 with the construction of the Home Insurance Building, designed by William Le Baron Jenney, an engineer and contemporary of Gustave Eiffel. Although only ten stories tall, it was an order of magnitude bigger than its predecessors. Jenney’s original design used wrought iron for its structural frame; Andrew Carnegie persuaded him to use a new material “structural steel” instead.
Carnegie was so pleased with the results that he built a new, thirteen story headquarters building in Pittsburgh on Fifth Avenue in 1895, and named it for himself. This was quickly followed by the Park Building, fifteen stories, also on Fifth Avenue, the next year.
In 1902 Henry Clay Frick erected his own namesake building on Grant Street, twenty stories tall. Its only requirement was that it be tall enough to keep his rival’s Carnegie Building perpetually in its shadow.
The first tall reinforced concrete building in Pittsburgh was the Penn-Rose Building, completed in 1906. Located in the Strip District, this ten-story structure is still in existence, serving as a residential facility.
The Farmers Bank Building on Wood Street became the city’s tallest when it was completed in 1910. At twenty-four stories and 344 feet high it was an impressive building; it was demolished in 1997.
Its tenure as the city’s tallest was short; in 1912 the Henry Oliver Building was completed on Smithfield Street, twenty five stories and 347 feet tall. It was designed by one of Jenney’s proteges, Daniel Burnham.
In 1910 a modest three-story building had been built for the First National Bank at Fifth Avenue and Wood Street. Two years later twenty-three more stories were added and its height of 387 feet took over the “King of the Hill” title. Burnham was also responsible for this building, which was demolished in 1968.
In 1929 a new flurry of skyscraper construction began with the Grant Building rising on Grant Street. Impressive at forty stories and 485 feet, it was credited to Henry Hornbostle. Its continuing claim to fame is the distinctive light at its peak, which spells out “Pittsburgh” in Morse Code.
Twenty years earlier Hornbostle had won an international contest for designing the University of Pittsburgh’s new Oakland campus. His award-winning concept was the Acropolis, a cluster of classic Greek buildings along the hillside above O’Hara Street. Four buildings were constructed; Thaw Hall is the only one to survive.
By the early 1920s, Pitt had a new Chancellor, John Bowman. When the block bounded by Fifth Avenue, Bigelow Boulevard, Forbes Avenue, and Bellefield Street became available, he persuaded the Mellon family to purchase it for the University. Bowman’s concept was a tall, inspirational building – a “Cathedral of Learning”. He hired architect Henry Klauder and structural engineer Homer Balcom to convert this vision into steel and stone.
When the Cathedral topped out in 1930 at 535 feet, it became the city’s tallest, only to be surpassed a few months later by the Gulf Building at 582 feet. The Gulf Building emulated its neighbor, the Grant Building, by showing the weather forecast via colored lights on its pyramidal top.
In 1953 Alcoa built its new headquarters building on Sixth Avenue, a 410 feet tall steel-framed structure, with an aluminum façade, demonstrating the owner’s product. The same procedure was followed by US Steel in 1970 and Pittsburgh Plate Glass in 1984 with their signature buildings.
The US Steel Tower is massive, 741 feet high, with 38,000 square feet of useable space on each of its sixty-two floors. No other building in the world can boast that large a floor at that height. Designed by Les Robertson, it featured exposed, unpainted “weathering” steel as a demonstration of the owner’s newest product. It currently is the city’s tallest building.
One PPG Place, completed in 1984, is architect Philip Johnson’s masterpiece. Forty stories 635 feet tall, its Neogothic design bears homage to both the Courthouse and the Cathedral of Learning, while providing a vivid example of the practical use of glass in major buildings.
Other notable buildings in the city in recent years include One Oxford Centre (1983, 615 feet); the BNY Mellon Center (1984, 725 feet); Fifth Avenue Place (1988, 616 feet); and the Tower at PNC Plaza (2015, 544 feet).
It is indeed enlightening to parallel the history of our city with the record of its landmark buildings from the earliest today to today.
A video of the presentation may be accessed at https://pitt.zoom.us/rec/share/nRM-LTCD19caNKiJIUSbMuCjt3h3ma03Gnk1grpa9vlR5t-r2Gw7J3Q2RgBECAJl.72O-0M0xKduK4-Gj.