Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation

10/05/2026

Our walking tour of the historic Allegheny West neighborhood on Saturday explored a neighborhood that was one of the city's most desirable places to live in its heyday.

In the 1890s, so many wealthy industrialists and merchants, built mansions in a section of what was then Allegheny City that one of the streets there was nicknamed Millionaire’s Row.

Men with the familiar last names of Jones, Laughlin, Phipps, and Kaufmann hired well-known architects to build their mansions and churches in this part of town.

Today, the architectural diversity of the neighborhood reflects a lot of the building styles and aesthetics of the opulence of that time-- from Colonial Revival, Richardsonian Romanesque, Italianate, Second Empire, and Greek Revival.

Renewing Communities; Building Pride

www.phlf.org

10/02/2026

For more than six decades, long before historic preservation became widely embraced, Ziegler argued that old buildings were not obstacles to progress but anchors of memory, culture and civic life.

That understanding was shaped, in part, by the Cathedral of Learning itself. As a young student arriving in Oakland, Ziegler (A&S ’58, ’60G) encountered the soaring neo-Gothic tower not simply as a university building, but as a landmark.

Decades later, the Cathedral would become one of the defining preservation efforts of his career.

For alumnus and longtime Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation leader Arthur Ziegler, preservation is about people and culture, not just buildings.

09/24/2026

If you are age 70 ½ or older, you can make a gift directly from your IRA to Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation through a Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD). When you transfer funds directly from your IRA to PHLF, your gift goes to work immediately without increasing your taxable income.

A Qualified Charitable Distribution can:

-- Satisfy your required Minimum Distribution if you are age 73 or older;

-- Reduce your Taxable Income even if you don’t itemize;

--Help you Avoid Higher Tax Brackets associated with mandatory; withdrawals, and

-- Make an Immediate Impact on historic preservation work.

Your gift can make a difference today and help us advocate for and preserve the significant historic buildings that define our region for generations to come.

Contact your IRA administrator to request a Qualified Charitable Distribution transfer form today or contact our Director of Planned Giving, Susan Drapkin: [email protected] or 412-471-5808, ext. 536.

Note: Please inform us of your gift when you request the transfer because IRA administrators may not notify us of your designation. This will help us ensure that your gift is properly received and that your gift intentions are followed. We would also like the opportunity to thank you for your generosity.

Renewing Communities; Building Pride

www.phlf.org

09/23/2026

“Landmarks Night at the Union Trust,” this evening, brought together friends from many different walks of life and included a reception, a tour of the historic building, and a moderated discussion about Pittsburgh featuring two longtime Pittsburgh authors and scholars.

We were delighted to see everyone that was able to join us tonight and we look forward to seeing more of you at our ongoing educational and advocacy programs.

Renewing Communities; Building Pride.

www.phlf.org

09/18/2026

Jamie Van Trump, who was a co-founder of our organization, and renown Pittsburgh architectural historian, who grew up and lived in Point Breeze, once famously described the city neighborhood as “Chateau Country.”

Perhaps one of the most distinctive aspects of the neighborhood’s history is the notable Pittsburghers that called it home. Some of Pittsburgh most consequential industrialists who generated great personal wealth and also helped build this city—Andrew Carnegie, H.J. Heinz, George Westinghouse, and Henry Clay Frick, all lived in Point Breeze at one time.

Of all their great houses, only Frick’s grand home, “Clayton,” survives, as part of The Frick Pittsburgh, but there is still much to see and explore in this large, residential city neighborhood.

That was the focus of our walking tour of the neighborhood on Thursday evening. We walked the neighborhood streets, toured the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary (originally the home of Durbin Horne, son of Joseph Horne), Pittsburgh New Church, and the nearby main street shops, and Engine House No. 16, which now houses the offices of Fireman Creative.

Renewing Communities; Building Pride

www.phlf.org

09/17/2026

DELIRIOUS PITTSBURGH: On the blink!

Favorite Examples of Signs and Illumination on Pittsburgh Architecture

This is the last in a three-part lecture series that considered aspects of Pittsburgh’s historical built environment and what makes it distinctive. This event will include a short reception to celebrate the end of the series and reflect. Join us!

Tuesday, October 27
6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Carnegie Museum of Art Theater
4400 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

For tickets: https://phlf.org/event/delirious-pittsburgh-on-the-blink/

09/10/2026

Downtown Pittsburgh is like a smorgasbord of architecture, with a remarkable array of buildings and places old, new, restored, and re-imagined.

The great variety of styles, functions, and stories of these buildings are part of what makes Pittsburgh unique and allows us to understand the relationship between our history and our built environment.

In a vigorous tour of architectural landmarks, spectacular interiors, and significant urban spaces, our tour group, this morning, learned how Pittsburgh developed from a military outpost in the 18th century into the 21st-century city that has been lauded for its beauty, walkability, and livability.

A signature tour of our organization, “Downtown’s Best: Special Places and Spaces,” highlights how historic buildings have been preserved and maintained for contemporary uses, manifesting the resilience and ingenuity that have defined Pittsburgh since its beginning.

Renewing Communities; Building Pride

www.phlf.org

08/29/2026

We had a brilliant tour of the house of the late artist Henry Koerner (1915-1991), this morning, now the residence of a historic preservationist who is also a collector of Koerner’s work.

In 1983, Koerner told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that his house was “a miniature of what I wanted all my life. I wanted balconies. A miniature palace…. This house is anachronistic baroque but at the same time very modern. The walls are ten feet high. They are white. Paintings look well on them.”

Designed with substantial involvement by Koerner and completed in 1966, it not only was the family’s abode, but also functioned as a gallery.

Here, Koerner showed his art, which is generally described as a Magical Realist for the way in which he synthesized the real with the strange or unfamiliar in his paintings and other works.

Koerner was born in Vienna but immigrated to the U.S. in 1938, when Germany annexed Austria. In 1952, he moved from New York to Pittsburgh to become artist-in-residence at what is now Chatham University.

In his more than four decades in the U.S., Koerner became nationally and internationally known, producing work ranging from drawings commissioned by Westinghouse for use in advertising to enormous, 16-panel paintings that combined imagery from his life in America and his family’s regular trips to his native land.

Our tour, graciously offered and led by the home’s owner, gave our guests a unique insight into this beguiling artist and his architectural alter-ego.

The house was awarded a Historic Landmark Plaque by Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation in 2021 and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2023.

Renewing Communities; Building Pride

www.phlf.org

08/28/2026

When Pittsburgh’s first full street plan was devised, in 1784, the surveyors surely couldn’t imagine that the City would ever extend beyond today’s Grant Street. The site they designated as Market Square thus was at the physical center of the City.

Although Pittsburgh now extends far beyond Downtown in every direction, Market Square remains an important urban space, and perhaps the psychic heart of the Central Business District.

Our tour today of Market Square, together with Bruce Chan, Senior Director of Urban Design at the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, telescoped in from a high-level history of the numerous forms the Square has taken in its 242 years to a granular examination of its most recent iteration, completed by the PDP earlier this year.

This kind of tour, conducted with our valued partners throughout the Pittsburgh area, allows us to demonstrate how cities endure over time and how preservation of historic resources contributes to this city’s survival.

Renewing Communities; Building Pride

www.phlf.org

08/26/2026

“Over the Hump,” our second in a three-part lecture series titled Delirious Pittsburgh by architectural critic, historian, and author Charles Rosenblum, was held this evening at the historic University Club on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh in Oakland.

We toured the 1923 limestone building designed by the notable American architect Henry Hornbostel, who among other buildings in Oakland also designed Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum, Temple Rodef Shalom, and much of the original quad of what is now Carnegie Mellon University.

The building’s rooftop terrace which offers spectacular views of Oakland’s substantive architecture of the City-Beautiful Era, is one of the most desirable spaces of building which blends old-world building design details with a touch of modern hospitality.

We also toured the building’s grand ballroom with a 20-foot ceiling and dazzling crystal chandeliers and its other smaller ballrooms and spaces before we took the grand staircase to the ground floor and into the building’s cozy library for our lecture.

In “Over the Hump,” Rosenblum reflected on the effect of what lowering the hill upon which the Allegheny County Courthouse was once settled along Grant Street must have had not only on city residents in the Lower Hill district, but on the city’s sense of identity and the scale of its historic built-environment.

Our third and final lecture in this series will be on Tuesday, October 27, at the Carnegie Museum of Art Theater in Oakland. Don’t miss it!

Renewing Communities; Building Pride.

www.phlf.org