University Of Pittsburgh's Cathedral Of Learning Celebrates Century Mark

(MENAFN- USA Art News) A century ago this year, the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning saw its ground broken. Conceived by John G. Bowman, the university's tenth chancellor, the 52-story neo-Gothic academic skyscraper became a monumental undertaking in American higher education. Bowman, originally from Iowa, presented his ambitious plan in November 1924 to more than a hundred business leaders and the university's board of trustees at the University Club, as reported by the New York Times two months later.

Bowman envisioned this structure as a“veritable monument to the idea of education,” centrally located within Allegheny County. The Oakland neighborhood, where Pitt's campus grew, had recently developed into a cultural center, already home to institutions such as the Carnegie Institute museums, the Carnegie Music Hall, Saint Paul's Cathedral, the Pittsburgh Athletic Association, the Grand Army of the Republic's Soldiers and Sailors Memorial, and Forbes Field.

An associate of architect Charles Zeller Klauder reportedly dubbed the building the“Cathedral of Learning,” a name that stuck. Bowman's vision, which sought to“inculcate wonder” rather than solely aggrandize corporate sponsors, stands in contrast to modern university investments. He saw a vertical future for collegiate structures, a perspective influenced by his time in New York and Chicago.

The site for the cathedral was an empty field purchased by banker and trustee Andrew W. Mellon, who was then Secretary of the Treasury and later founded Washington, D.C.'s National Gallery of Art. When construction began a century ago, the Cathedral of Learning would have been the third-tallest skyscraper globally. Upon its completion in 1937, it was the tallest educational structure on Earth and remains the tallest in the Western Hemisphere.

Legend states that Klauder found inspiration for the design while listening to Richard Wagner's“Magic Fire Music” from Die Walküre. Both Bowman and Klauder drew inspiration from John Ruskin's The Stones of Venice (1851), which posited that Gothic architecture could allow“fragments full of imperfection [to] raise up a stately and unaccusable whole.” Bowman told the New York Times interviewer,“Isn't it time that we should take seriously the idea that beauty is essential to life as truth?”

Though initially designed for 52 stories, the building was ultimately constructed to 42 stories, a reduction influenced by economic realities after the stock market crash. Encompassing more than half a million square feet and featuring 12 elevators, the structure, built with Indiana limestone, once bore the black stains of steel mill smog. Today, it ranks as only the eighth tallest building in Pittsburgh. Architectural historian Martin Aurand noted that the Cathedral“retains its architectural distinction because it dominates its urban setting. It stands free of other buildings on a grassy plot of land, and it towers above its neighbors,” distinguishing it from similar skyscrapers in other cities.

Source: Hyperallergic

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