HAClab Imagining the Modern 002

IMAGINING THE MODERN

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THE HEINZ ARCHITECTURAL CENTERCARNEGIE MUSEUM OF ART

MARCH 2016H

ACLAB

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Imagined,Unbuilt,The Golden Triangle

and East Liberty, Mapping Networks,

Robert Pease—Steel City's Civic

Servant.

Pittsburgh Center for the Arts

Panther Hollow

Point Park Civic Center

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IMAGINED, UNBUILT.

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Downtown Street View, n.d.

Allegheny Center Park, n.d.

Civic Arena, 1960

Robert Pease in his office, 1983

Heinz Factory complex, n.d.

Allegheny Center, 1973

Hurricane Agnes, 1972

Carlton House Demo, 1980

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ROBERT PEASESELECTED IMAGES

Jaye poses with the Lower Hill Models, 1959

Grandview Overlook, c. 1963

In the fall of 2015, artist and photographer

Shamus Fatzinger was driving through his neigh-

borhood of Edgewood when he spotted a moun-

tain of slide boxes out on the curb. Naturally, he

pulled over to investigate. As he was rummaging

through, a voice called down from the dark porch:

"You want me to just tell you what's in there?"

The voice belonged to Robert Pease, director of

the URA during most of Pittsburgh’s Renaissance.

Over 5,000 slides chronicle the life of the Pease

family through more than six decades, celebrating

their lives and their travels. Among these memories

are traces of the city’s evolution, as seen by someone

intimately involved.

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FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT AND THE POINT

PARK CIVIC CENTER

Wright was behind two of the unrealized

designs.

In the late 1940s, at the behest of busi-

nessman and booster Edgar Kaufmann,

Pittsburgh approached the celebrated

architect to design a civic center complex

at the Point. It was to have an urban feel,

but Wright was supposed to minimize ve-

hicular congestion and restore the French

and Indian War —era fort that gave the city

its name.

In characteristic form, Wright did neither,

proposing instead an enormous corkscrew

ramp, nearly a quarter mile in diameter,

that would provide access to a number

of ambitious venues, including an opera

house, planetarium, aquarium, exhibition

halls and a sports arena. The complex was

to be connected via two multilevel bridges

to the North Side and the South Side, with

a third connection leading to a 500-foot

tower at the confluence of the three rivers.

Following a muted reaction from the

Point Park Committee, Wright proposed

a second, slightly more subdued version:

two cable bridges hanging from a 100-

foot tower. The mammoth ramp remained

in the plan as a parking podium.

Failing to gain traction, the project was

shelved in favor of Charles Stotz’s land-

scape proposal and the modernist towers

of Gateway Center.

SOM AND THE PITTSBURGH CENTER

FOR THE ARTS

Building on the success of Gateway Center

and other Downtown projects, Pittsburgh’s

civic leaders set their sights on the renewal

of the Lower Hill.

In an attempt to redefine it as the city’s

“cultural Acropolis,” land was cleared for

construction, displacing thousands of

largely African American residents and

hundreds of businesses. The Civic Arena

was the first project built on the site, and

it was to be followed by a Center for the

Arts with a museum of art (relocated from

Oakland) and a new symphony hall (sup-

ported by an $8 million grant from the

Howard Heinz Endowment).

In 1961, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was

hired to design the project. The firm’s team

was led by Gordon Bunshaft, known for the

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

at Yale University; 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza,

now 28 Liberty, in New York; the elegant

Point State Park portal bridge; and H.J.

Heinz Co’s Vinegar Plant and Warehouse

on the North Side, among other projects.

Bunshaft addressed the sloping site by

designing an enormous plinth with the art

museum and the symphony hall at opposite

ends of a landscaped plaza, affording dra-

matic views. The symphony hall was to be

wrapped in a monumental glass box and

flanked by oversize travertine columns

supporting a waffle-slab roof. The three-

story art museum was to be enlivened with

a crenelated roof structure.

However, within a few years, the coalition

formed to support the project fell apart

in the face of opposition by Hill residents,

who grew increasingly suspicious of the

project, and by Oakland institutions that

did not want to see the art museum relo-

cated. H.J. Heinz II invested in a Downtown

symphony venue, the art museum re-

mained in Oakland, and the Hill waited

decades for additional development.

HARRISON & ABRAMOVITZ AND

PANTHER HOLLOW

In the 1960s Oakland was developing at a

rapid pace, in large part due to the ener-

getic leadership of University of Pittsburgh

Chancellor Edward Litchfield, who upon

taking the reins of Pitt, retained Harrison

& Abramovitz (the Pan Am building in New

York; Empire State Plaza in Albany; Alcoa

Building and, later, US Steel in Pittsburgh)

to consult on campus growth. Among the

many projects overseen by Abramovitz was

the exceedingly ambitious megastructure

to fill Panther Hollow: the nation’s “first

21st Century City.”

Designing for the Oakland Corp., a jointly

owned, Pitt-dominated consortium of

seven institutions, Abramovitz proposed

a structure to fill the entire ravine strad-

dling Pitt, the Carnegie Museums, and

Carnegie Mellon University. Envisioned as

a research city linking Oakland’s academic

and cultural institutions, the mile-long

complex would have filled the hollow to

the brim, expanding Schenley Park with a

series of rooftop terraces and gardens and

culminating in a hanging garden at Panther

Hollow Lake.

The city would have provided its own ser-

vices and amenities and supported a se-

ries of residential developments. Portions

were to be replaced periodically so the

overall city remained up to date.

When presented with great fanfare by the

Oakland Corp. in 1963, the project was

initially estimated to cost more than $250

million, or about $2.6 billion in today’s

dollars. Although the Oakland Corp. con-

tinued to promote the project for a few

years, it was quietly shelved by 1965, the

year Litchfield resigned amid a financial

crisis engendered by the university’s rapid

growth.

While these projects failed to materialize,

they were significant nonetheless. First,

the national attention they garnered help-

ed position Pittsburgh as an important

urban player in the postwar era. Second,

they provided the architects with opportu-

nities to think about large-scale solutions

for modern cities. Third—and perhaps most

important—the discussion surrounding

these projects helped galvanize support

and refine the designs for the projects that

did come to fruition.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED

FOR THE PIT TSBURGH POST-GA ZET TE ON

THE 8TH OF NOVEMBER , 2015

With the recent unveiling of a new master plan for the Lower Hill by celebrated Danish archi-tecture f irm Bjarke Ingels Group, it is worth looking back at other famous architects who have presented design proposals for Pittsburgh.

Of special interest are those that never took wing, predominately large-scale visions conceived by the biggest names of the era. Had these proposals materialized, several neighborhoods—including Downtown, the Lower Hill, and Oakland —

would be unrecognizable today.

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In some respects the most visible aspect

of the city’s renewal effort during the

Pittsburgh Renaissance era, the Golden

Triangle boasts several decades of succ-

essful corporate architecture and mod-

ernist public spaces. Led by civic and

business leaders,

this effort included

a series of new

towers that served

as the headquarters for Pittsburgh-based

companies (as well as several branch of-

fice towers for national companies) and

showcased the materials that led to these

companies’ successes.

Among these are 525 William Penn Place,

the Alcoa Building, and the US Steel

Building, all designed by Harrison &

Abramovitz, then the architects of choice

for corporate America. Completed in 1951,

525 William Penn Place represented an

early example of the commercial tower

in Pittsburgh, and originally housed both

the Mellon National Bank and US Steel

companies. Modern, but restrained, the

tower is reminiscent of Rockefeller Tower

in Manhattan, and a fitting headquar-

ters for the Mellon interests in postwar

Pittsburgh.

Far more adventurous is the Alcoa Build-

ing opposite. Here Harrison & Abramovitz

(with local architecture firms Altenhof &

Bown and Mitchell & Ritchey serving as

associate architects) celebrated alumi-

num in new and innovative ways, from the

cladding to the insulation to the wiring

and plumbing.

The second US Steel Building is an archi-

tectural masterpiece that evokes not just

the client in its bold use of material but

the entire city in a formal resolution that

celebrates the Triangle’s two grids.

Between the two buildings sits the mod-

ernist landscape of Mellon Square, which

offered the city a fascinating new proto-

type: the underground garage disguised

as a plaza. The park, including the geo-

metric paving patterns and the cascading

fountains, was designed by Simonds &

Simonds, while Mitchell & Ritchey de-

signed the multistory underground garage

and retail along Smithfield Street.

A number of other architecturally notable

parking garages were built during this

period. Each celeb-

rated the automo-

bile—sometimes

with dramatic gest-

ures—and endeavored to provide effic-

ient means of visiting Downtown by car.

Among these is the Smithfield & Liberty

Garage; here Altenhof & Bown clad the

triangular parking structure in brick along

Liberty Avenue, but choose to express the

poured concrete of the corkscrew exit

ramp. With its support arches recessed,

the ramps’ discs appear to float in the

middle of the Smithfield block.

BUILT

1 525 William Penn Place H A R R I S ON & A B R A M OV I T Z2 Mellon Square S I M ON D S & S I M ON D S M I TCH EL L & R I TCH E Y3 Alcoa Building H A R R I S ON & A B R A M OV I T Z4 Porter Building H A R R I S ON & A B R A M OV I T Z5 US Steel Building H A R R I S ON , A B R A M OV I T Z & A B B E6 Federal Building A LT E N H O F & B OW N7 Smithfield & Liberty Garage A LT E N H O F & B OW N

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THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE

Let them multiply, there is no sky in the world which needs

scraping more than that which arches over the Iron City.Pittsburgh Bulletin 1959

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7Interview with Robert Pease was conducted on December 10, 2015, by Rami el Samahy with Matthew Newton and Shamus Fatzinger. Photograph by Shamus Fatzinger.

ROBERT PEASESTEEL CITY'S CIVIC SERVANT

of knowledge as to the implications of liv-

ing there and working in the city, I don’t

think were foremost in anybody’s thought.

East Liberty is now coming back because

of the rise in commercial activity rather

than people just saying "I want to live in

East Liberty." Now there’s a real reason to

live in East Liberty, with what’s happening

economically. You have companies like

Google coming to East Liberty, stores and

restaurants opening, lots of apartments oc-

cupied and more being built. Today, it has

become a hot center and convenient to a

lot of things. Though I don’t know if anybody

can take any credit for it, it just happens.

PLANNING ALLEGHENY CENTER

How would you characterize the planning

process that led to Allegheny Center?

A study by the regional planning commission

proposed a huge cut through Monument Hill

to get the expressway north, which would’ve

wrecked the neighborhood. We fought and

successfully stopped it. Allegheny looked

like an opportunity for development be-

cause of its location, history, and because it

was surrounded with the Commons. The re-

development was an opportunity to select

a smaller area and try to build something

that was really attractive.

There was a lot of racial tension following

the assassination of Martin Luther King in

1968, and other events occurred that made

it difficult to finish the project. Gradually

there were apartments added. It’s a pretty

good place to live, especially for those who

work in the North Side, work in the hospital,

or even Downtown. I still think the plans

for that project were among the best the

URA produced.

ON CONTEMPORARIES

Could speak about some of your contem-

poraries outside of Pittsburgh with whom

you were in dialogue?

Boston’s Ed Logue and I were very close,

and shared a similar history. He was a bom-

bardier in World War II and I was a naviga-

tor. Charlie Farris ran the program in St.

Louis and he had all kinds of problems. He

had built a lot of new stuff—high rise, slab

building apartments, highly touted at the

beginning but later denigrated as a mistake.

Lawrence Cox from Norfolk, Virginia, had

the first publicly financed renewal project

in the country, which was a small housing

project. The way they charted out the row

houses was fascinating because they’d

back a truck up to the front of the house,

put blocks behind the wheels, put a cable

around the house, and tighten a winch

and tear the house down in five minutes.

It was wild. In San Francisco, the head of

planning, Al Jacobs, came from Pittsburgh.

San Francisco was more complicated, the

mayor was more influential on the planning

commission than Al thought it should be.

Al fought like mad against that triangular

shaped [Transamerica] building, but it was

built in spite of him.

For a while the Ford Foundation supported

an organization of about 12 people who

worked in cities in regional ways. We used

to meet a couple of times a year and just

talk about the issues of urban renewal.

There are some who argue that urban re-

newal was not the right thing to do. I don't

know, I could make a case either way. Given

the lack of building during World War II, the

lack of even maintaining what was built be-

fore the war, I think that the recovery after

the war was important and urban renewal

was part of that excitement.

ON PITTSBURGH EXCEPTIONALISM

What distinguished Pittsburgh in that era

from other cities?

Steel. We were producing for the war ef-

fort, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, just

going gangbusters. Fortunes were made.

Pittsburgh became the arsenal of the world;

well that’s an overstatement, but it was.

How would you say the dynamics of working

here differed from Boston or St. Louis?

I think one of the keys here was that we had

a mayor, David Lawrence, who was smart

enough to know where politics belonged

and where politics didn’t belong. For ex-

ample, during the time I was at the URA, he

never once required me to hire anybody.

He kept that separate from his political

life, and he recognized that was important.

The other issue that I think was important

was the complete devotion to the city by

the business leadership. The Allegheny

Conference is a good example where the

executive committee was made up of chief

executives of major corporations. Under

their own rules they had to serve person-

ally, they couldn’t send any substitute to a

meeting. You get those 18 guys in a room

and a decision is made, the decision sticks.

Then the staff knew they had the backing of

that kind of group. Whether it meant raising

money, or policies or action, all that came

together to make Pittsburgh a special city

during that period. It was an interesting time.

I don’t think it’s a Camelot, but you could

get dang close.

PLANNING TODAY

What is your favorite building from this era?

I always liked Alcoa and I liked the US Steel

Building, that external structure was fan-

tastic. I worked there for 10 years when

Allegheny Conference was there. It was a

great place to be, a beautiful building, first

rate. I’ve always liked Gateway Center be-

cause of the open space; the open space is

important, maybe more so than the build-

ings themselves. The buildings aren’t great,

but they were designed at a time when

material was short.

Do you have any regrets?

Any regrets I have would not be about a

huge project but about some little thing

that we might’ve done better, usually with

regard to the small businesses or relocation

of some people. I don’t have huge regrets.

Sometimes I wish things would’ve gone

faster but they never did. Rebuilding an area

is very difficult, it always takes more time

than we think. Gateway Center took over

20 years from beginning to end.

I think Pittsburgh has a lot to be proud of.

I always thought Mellon Square was a great

addition to Downtown Pittsburgh. Living

here is fairly easy compared to other cities.

Commuting is not that difficult; you some-

times have traffic jams but it’s not horrible.

Mass transit is good, could be better, could

be used more. I use it all the time since

I’ve moved to Oakland. My car sits for days

without being touched. It’s a good system.

Any advice to those who are planning and

designing today?

Just keep on keeping on, do your best and

keep trying. Since I first got involved, the

involvement of people has become much

stronger than it used to be and that’s for

the better. In the beginning, it was “here’s

a plan and here’s a hearing for city council

and here’s what we’re going to do and it’s

all approved and let’s start buying prop-

erty.” That’s all been changed. Some folks

say, “Well now it takes longer.” Yes it does,

but it’s a better process. I sometimes think

that the urban renewal process encouraged

citizen involvement and changed a lot, in-

cluding highway development. Maybe that’s

too simple a statement, but I think there’s

some truth to it.

One of the things we’re struck by about this

era is the willingness to think big, really big,

for better and for worse. Afterward, the

pendulum swung towards a timidity on the

part of planners and designers and politi-

cians because they didn’t want to get their

fingers burned again.

I think you’re right. Citizen participation,

particularly if they were against something,

made it difficult for planners. I remember

we had developed big plans for Oakland,

because the schools and health centers

were expanding. I remember a huge public

meeting one night, and I was on the stage,

and some guy way in the back of the room

stood up and raised his hand.“I have a

question: how can we stop this thing?” So I

said, “You all get organized, all decide what

you want and what you don’t want, and let

it be known to the public you’ll stop this

particular project.” And they did.

In those days there was a federal regula-

tion that if a university or hospital spent

money to develop something, we would

get credit for that money against a future

project. So we saw this as a gold mine. In

this case, I think we were greedy and we

failed. But I’m not sorry we failed, it was a

great experience.

There are some who argue that urban renewal was not the

right thing to do. I don't know, I could make a case either way. [...] I think that the recovery after the war was important

and urban renewal was part of that excitement.

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What were your impressions of Pittsburgh

when you first arrived?

I came to Pittsburgh in August of 1946.

Sometimes I’d get up in the morning—I lived

at the corner of Forbes and Morewood—and

I couldn’t see across the campus because of

the smoke. My upper lip would be grey just

from breathing the air. So Pittsburgh was a

thriving city, industrially, but as a place to

live, I didn’t think much of it. I came from

the midwest with clean air and had no plans

to stay here. I thought I would leave be-

cause the city was a pretty lousy place then,

smoky and dirty, but it never happened.

Of course the winter of ’48 was the last

smoky winter and the change was dramatic.

I’ve often told people that was one of the

reasons Pittsburgh began to have successes

in terms of its rejuvenation; people had the

feeling “well we got rid of the smoke, now

let’s do some more.” At the same time, the

flood control dams were being built, which

meant that the flood of ’36 would never

happen again, and the mills and industries

were going crazy, employment was strong.

It was a great city to be in economically.

So it was almost happenstance that you

stayed here.

I worked at [Carnegie] Tech for four years

after I graduated. A fun job. I tell my kids

and grandkids: "Your life happens, you can’t

even try to make plans. Take advantage of

the messiness."

What drew you to work at the URA?

An accident. I was working on the cam-

pus and Web Jones, who was the dean in

Engineering, called me to his office one day,

and he said, “You know, there’s a friend of

mine who’s head of the Redevelopment

Authority, and he’s looking for an engineer.”

So he called this fellow, Jack Robin, and

said, “I’m talking to a man named Bob Pease.

Here’s his record...he has a distinguished

flying cross and five air medals…” He had

read my war record, not my school grades!

My grades were okay but not great.

I went downtown and I met with Jack, and

after 15 minutes he offered me a job. The

URA was just starting, Jack Robin was the

first executive director, a man named Ted

Hayes was the attorney, and I was the en-

gineer. We were a staff of three, plus clerks.

And it just gradually began to grow to what

it is today.

Was there a sense early on that you were

doing something unprecedented?

Personally, no. I didn’t appreciate that.

As I grew in the job and became head of

the URA, I began to have an appreciation

because I was able to travel with Mayor

Lawrence to different cities, and I realized

we were becoming an example for other

cities to follow. I didn’t have this personal

feeling that I was doing these great things,

but I felt that Pittsburgh was special and

was becoming a good place to live in.

What are some of your proudest achieve-

ments at the URA?

Well, I think one was to collect and man-

age a good staff. In terms of projects, the

Lower Hill was underway when I got in-

volved. Allegheny Center, East Liberty, the

North Side, were other projects we started

ourselves. The Allegheny Center was the

best-designed project we had done.

CHANGE AND THE LOWER HILL

Was there support for the Lower Hill re-

development initially, even from the Hill

community?

There was really no opposition during the

early public hearings. Now that may have

been a sign of the times because that was a

"you can’t fight City Hall" period, but there

was a general consensus that the Hill was

in need of change.

There’s one story I like to tell about a land-

lord who owned two buildings in the Hill

District. He asked me if we would leave

those two houses for him. Four families

were living there and each had three rooms:

basement, first floor, second floor. There

was no plumbing, just an outhouse. The only

heating was through open grates. It was bit-

ter, bitter cold the day I went up there, and

the air quality, the carbon monoxide levels,

was just awful. The saving grace was that the

walls were full of cracks, so they got some

fresh air. There were a lot of buildings like

that in the Hill District. It always interests

me that historians talk about this beautiful

neighborhood that was torn down. If you

walked through there in the summertime,

you could smell the outhouses. I think it was

a slum, by almost any definition.

[Urban critic and historian] Lewis Mumford

visited Pittsburgh, and I took him for a walk

through the Lower Hill one hot summer

afternoon. He told me that he would like to

see old brick houses, to see what could be

saved. At the end of the day, Mumford said,

“You know, I really don’t see any redeeming

grace; I don’t see anything that is worth sav-

ing.” That’s not published, but that’s what

he told me. And being in his company was

kind of a thrill for me.

We were excited by the Pittsburgh Art

Center development at the east end of the

project. [Gordon] Bunshaft was the lead

architect. There was a theater, underground

parking, a sculpture garden, and an art

museum. Several foundations put almost

$2,000,000 into the planning and guaran-

teed that the land would be bought for that

purpose. The land had to be guaranteed in

order to have a development approved for

federal funding.

Why wasn’t a project for a cultural acropo-

lis capable of accepting and incorporating

the culture that was already there, which

included a phenomenal jazz scene?

It’s a hard question and it deserves a hard

answer—but I would surmise that racial

segregation was an issue. The population

to the east was pretty black and there was

growing sensitivity or fright to that. People

would gather from the Hill at the church up

at the corner of Center and Bedford, and

then march Downtown to Mellon Square;

and the head of Mellon Bank would call

me and say, “We got all these blacks out

here in the square, what should we do?” I

said, “Nothing, just keep on doing your busi-

ness.” They meant no harm, they were just

demonstrating and they were developing

strength through the demonstrations. But

that, I think, did a lot to cool off the desire

to build this great art center in that area.

REMAKING EAST LIBERTY

Was the process different in East Liberty?

What lessons did you learn from the Hill

experience?

East Liberty was so big—250 acres—and we

were trying to do so much rehabilitating old

structures, tearing down others and build-

ing new, it was almost too big to handle.

In retrospect, it wasn’t a great success.

Yes, there was some new housing; yes, we

shrank the commercial area, from three

million square feet of commercial space to

about a million-nine, and maybe sometimes

inhumanely to some of the small businesses,

which is a small regret. But I don’t know

what the answer might have been to save

those either.

I think the concept was good; it tried to

organize traffic, to divert the 80% of traf-

fic that was through-traffic, and in doing

so create a viable pedestrian realm. But

people complained about the traffic pat-

tern. They didn’t know how to get from

Point A to Point B by going around the circle.

Pedestrian malls seemed like a good idea

at the time, but they didn’t work because

people didn’t use them that much. In the

end, we couldn’t get the storeowners to

beautify their buildings or build back en-

trances [for access from the new parking

lots]. It just didn’t come off as well as we

thought it might.

Three of the most frequent critiques lev-

eled at the urban renewal era are the

wholesale removal of existing fabric, the

automobile-centric planning, and the lack

of public participation, yet in East Liberty,

the URA engaged in preservation, pedes-

trian-oriented open spaces, and a serious

public engagement process. Is it true that

there were 296 community meetings during

the planning phase?

Something like that, yes.

And the project was initiated at the behest

of the merchants?

The businesses, merchants, right, right.

And it was largely pedestrian. It didn’t fit the

villainous profile of urban renewal—there’s

preservation, there’s public engagement,

there’s public realm—and yet it’s seen as

this

colossal failure, as some people say.

Would you agree that its failure was part of

something larger, chiefly the suburbaniza-

tion of America and the building of malls

outside of the city? Those who could were

leaving in large numbers, choosing to live

and shop elsewhere. It was a problem larger

than city planning could solve.

I think that’s exactly what happened. People

wanted something new; they wanted ei-

ther a new house or a new road or a new

playground or a new school, and that was

all available in the suburbs. It was also af-

fordable; through FHA you could borrow

money and buy a house. People moved to

the suburbs for those things, but the lack

Robert B. Pease was born in Nebraska in 1925.

He served during World War II as an Air Force

navigator before coming to Pit tsburgh to

study engineering at the Carnegie Institute

o f Tech no lo g y (n ow C a r neg i e M ellon

University). Upon graduating, he worked for the

university, working with a group that focused on

postwar development of the campus.

In 1953, he joined the Urban Redevelopment

Authority of Pittsburgh (URA) and by 1958

became its Executive Director. During his tenure

at the URA Pease worked on more than 40 pro-

jects in the city, including the neighborhoods

of the Lower Hill and East Liberty. Pease sub-

sequently became the Executive Director of

the Allegheny Conference on Community

Development (ACCD) in the late 1960s. Under

his leadership, the organization secured grants

for public schools and the expansion of the

Pittsburgh International Airport.

After leaving the ACCD in 1991, Pease became

the Senior Vice President of the National

Development Corporation, a private real est-

ate development and construction firm. He also

served as a consultant for urban redevelopment

projects around the world, including in Japan,

India, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. He has

won several awards for his work, including being

named an Honorary Member by the American

Society of Civic Engineers in 1994.

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I am not in favor of the destruction of automobiles, not even nec-

essarily of the diminution of the automotive population, but I am

most definitely in favor of domesticating it, and making it useful

to the human race, just as we did with the horse and the cow and

various types of poultry...

EAST LIBERTY

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1 East Liberty Pedestrian Mall S I M ON D S & S I M ON D S W I T H PM M A2 East Mall Residential Tower

Apartments TA SS O K AT S EL A S3 Penn Plaza Apartments TA SS O K AT S EL A S4 Pennley Park TA SS O K AT S EL A S5 Friendship Plaza Building H OWA R D, B UR T A N D H I L L6 Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh L I F F, J US T H & CH E T L I N7 Penn Circle Tower Apartments TA SS O K AT S EL A S8 Liberty Park Apartments TA SS O K AT S EL A S

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Victor Gruen The Heart of Our Cities,

The Urban Crisis: Diagnosis and Cure, 1964

Long considered Pittsburgh’s second

downtown, East Liberty was the com-

mercial core of the East End, historically

a preferred location for the city’s upper

and middle classes. As those with means

increasingly relocated to the suburbs in

the postwar era, lo-

cal merchants and

other civic leaders

asked the Urban

Redevelopment

Authority (URA) for

assistance in saving

East Liberty from

through - traffic

congestion, a high rate of commercial

vacancies, and deteriorating housing stock.

In 1960, following its successes with the

downtown Renaissance and its challenges

with redeveloping the Lower Hill, the URA

took on its largest redevelopment project

to date with an unprecedented amount

of community input. Absorbing Victor

Gruen’s ideas of reestablishing human-

centric social spaces in the face of grow-

ing sprawl, through-traffic was diverted

via a boulevard looped around the com-

mercial core, with surface parking lots

available for those intending to shop. The

business corridor was transformed into the

East Liberty Pedestrian Mall, designed by

landscape architects Simonds & Simonds,

with wayfinding and signage by Peter

Muller-Munk Associates (PMMA). Tasso

Katselas was tasked to design 1,800 new

residential units in a mix of townhouses,

mid-rise apartments, and towers, including

the heroic East Mall Residential Tower that

spanned Pennsylvania Avenue.

Built by private developers who benefited

from government subsidies for building

affordable housing, the new residences

changed the economic demographic of

the area, but did nothing to stem the

tide of middle-class flight. Many retail-

ers relocated, further contributing to the

downward slump. The success of the road

loop hinged upon a new highway from East

Liberty to Downtown, which never ma-

terialized, and East

Liberty Boulevard

became famously

known as the “road

to nowhere.” Today,

most of the built

plans of this era

have been undone.

With the formerly

malled streets reopened, residential

towers demolished, new housing in place,

and the loop road gradually reintegrated

into the street grid, East Liberty is again

looking at revitalization.

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MAPPING NETWORKS OF MODERN ARCHITECTUREINSTITUTIONAL PROJECTS

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B.K. JOHNSTONE ET AL.

C. LUCKMAN CELLI-FLYNN CURRY & MARTIN

E.L. BARNES HARRISON & ABRAMOVITZ

HOK J. PEKRUHN LAWRIE & GREEN

LIFF, JUSTH & CHETLIN

M. COZZA MIES VAN DER ROHE

SOM T. KATSELAS UDA W. ROBERTS WTW

DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY WQEDUNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

CARNEGIE LIBRARY OF PITTSBURGH

COMMUNITY COLLEGE OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY

CARNEGIE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY / CARNEGIE

MELLON UNIVERSITY

CHATHAM COLLEGE GRAPHIC ARTS TECHNICAL FOUNDATION

HILL HOUSE ASSOCIATION MUSEUM OF ART, CARNEGIE INSTITUTE

PITTSBURGH BOARD OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

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MITCHELL & RITCHEY / D.R.S.

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COMMISION

ASSOCIATION

This diagram, based on research by

Martin Aurand, connects the major pa-

trons and architects behind Pittsburgh’s

modern institutional architecture with

their projects and with each other

(similar diagrams mapping civic bod-

ies and corporations can be found in

the exhibition). The extensive array un-

derscores the breadth of Pittsburgh’s

patronage of modern architecture. The

roster of architects includes many names,

but reveals that a few key firms—both

local (Mitchell & Ritchey/Deeter Ritchey

Sippel, Tasso Katselas) and national

(Harrison & Abramovitz, Skidmore Ow-

ings & Merrill [SOM])—played an outsiz-

ed role in reshaping the city during the

Renaissance era.

Institutions (University of Pittsburgh,

Carnegie Institute of Technology/

Carnegie Mellon University, Carnegie

Library of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Board

of Public Education) introduced modern

architecture into the academy and the

neighborhood in the form of university

buildings, schools, and libraries. The

diagram also records a number of aspi-

rational projects—like SOM’s Pittsburgh

Center for the Arts and Harrison &

Abramovitz’s Panther Hollow Project—

that never quite got off the ground; and

reveals the limited life spans of some

built projects—like Walter Roberts’

Reizenstein School—that proved suscep-

tible to obsolescence, evolving social and

economic forces, and changing taste.

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HACLAB EVENTS SPRING 2016

The HACLab salons are informal but informed

discussions around a set of key topics, for the

entertainment and education of invited par-

ticipants and audience alike. All present will

be encouraged to participate. Salons will take

place in the HAC galleries on Thursday eve-

nings between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.

OUR MODERN CITY

Thursday, April 7

It’s important that we understand not just the products created by modernism (books, buildings, and urban blocks) but also the processes and policies that brought about their creation. What lessons can Pittsburgh learn from their city’s recent history? Can past experience be recalibrated to make the architecture and urbanism needed for tomorrow?

LASHAWN BURTON-FAULK (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MANCHESTER CITIZENS CORPORATION); CHRISTINE MONDOR (CHAIR, PITTS-BURGH PLANNING COMMISSION); COREY ZEHNGEBOT (BOSTON REDEVELOPMENT AREA); AND JUSTIN P. GREENAWALT (PRESERVA-

TION PITTSBURGH)

WHERE TO NEXT?

Thursday, April 28

A selection of previously invited salon speakers are asked to return to help us review the exhibit and related events, and to assist in determining what, if anything, should be done next.

PUBLIC DISCUSSION IN HAC GALLERIES WITH MIMI ZEIGER (CRITIC, CURATOR); CHARLES L. ROSENBLUM (CRITIC); AND SELECT SALON

PARTICIPANTS.

Quantum Theatre is staging a production

of Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder in col-

laboration with the Heinz Architectural

Center. Directed by Martin Giles, the play

will take audiences inside an iconic modern-

ist structure of some controversy: the soon-

to-be-reimagined Nova Place. The play runs

April 8–May 1, 2016. For more information visit

www.quantumtheatre.com.

PRE-SHOW CONVERSATION

Friday, April 29

HACLab curators will participate in a pre-show conversation to discuss modernism, morality, and the role of ambition in design.

RAMI EL SAMAHY, CHRIS GRIMLEY, AND MICHAEL KUBO. CON-VERSATION AND PERFORMANCE WILL TAKE PLACE IN THE FOR-MER ALLEGHENY CENTER COMPLEX, NOW NOVA PLACE: 100 S. COMMONS STREET, 15212.

HAClab Imagining the Modern 002

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