BUILDINGS

By John F. Oyler, PhD, PE

The partnership between architects and civil (structural) engineers has evolved in recent years, paralleling the evolution of technology for tall buildings. Historically, small buildings were the province of architects, with an emphasis on aesthetic features. But understanding construction materials and the methods of using them has been the province of engineers, based on their educational training and application in professional practice. With the advent of “skyscrapers,” it became obvious that a thorough comprehension of the way gravity and horizontal (primarily wind) loads are transferred from their point of application to the foundation was essential to the design of a functioning structure. To many observers, the importance of the “engineer” part of the architect/engineer team has surpassed that of the “architect” for tall buildings.

The world’s first skyscraper was constructed in 1885 in Chicago—the Home Insurance Building. Ten stories and 138 feet high, it was designed by William Le Baron Jenney, an engineer and classmate of Gustave Eiffel at École Centrale Paris. Jenney was born in 1832 in Massachusetts and served as an engineering officer under Generals Sherman and Grant. After the war, he established a firm in Chicago specializing in urban planning and the design of commercial buildings. Several of the future leaders of the “Chicago School” of architecture, including Louis Sullivan and Daniel Burnham, served apprenticeships in his firm.

Although the structure was originally conceived as a wrought-iron structure, Andrew Carnegie persuaded Jenney to utilize “an exotic new material,” steel, in the Home Insurance Building. The success of the building obviously influenced the design of Carnegie’s new headquarters building in Pittsburgh. The Carnegie Steel Building, constructed in 1895, was Pittsburgh’s first steel-framed skyscraper and one of the earliest buildings of this type anywhere in the world. Its architect—the firm of Longfellow, Alden & Harlow—is credited with its conception. It is an early example of the “Chicago School” architecture, heavily influenced by Jenney. At thirteen stories and two hundred feet, it was taller than any other structure in the city except for the granite masonry tower of H.H. Richardson’s magnificent Allegheny County Courthouse. The building served as the headquarters for Andrew Carnegie’s steel company and later for the United States Steel Company. Located at 428–38 Fifth Avenue, it was demolished in 1952 to permit expansion of Kaufmann’s Department Store.

The Park Building (with its Beaux-Arts façade), constructed in 1896, still stands at 351 Fifth Avenue. Fifteen stories and 199 feet tall, it was constructed by industrialists David and William Park and was the first building in Pittsburgh with automatic elevators. Its design is credited to architect George B. Post.

When constructed in 1902 at 437 Grant Street, the Frick Building became Pittsburgh’s tallest at twenty floors. Ten years later, when Grant’s Hill was removed to facilitate traffic on Grant Street, its basement became its ground floor; consequently, it is now classified as a twenty-one-story building, 330 feet tall. Either designation would have delighted Henry Clay Frick, whose only requirement for the building, located across the street from the thirteen-story headquarters of his rival Andrew Carnegie, was that it be tall enough to keep Carnegie always in Frick’s shadow. The architect/engineer for the Frick Building was Daniel Burnham, who would later design the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Union Station in 1902 and the Henry W. Oliver Building in 1910. His technical training had come during his employment as a draftsman for Jenney after failing admissions examinations for Harvard and Yale.

The site on which the Frick Building was constructed had been the location of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. Frick had the church carefully disassembled and moved to Oakland, where it was rebuilt at the corner of Forbes Avenue and Craft Street, an interesting decision by a man vilified as a greedy robber baron. Years later, Carlow University demolished the church and constructed an academic building on the site.

The Penn Rose Building, located between Sixteenth and Seventeenth Streets on Penn Avenue, in the Strip District, is believed to be the first all concrete building in Pittsburgh. Built in 1906, it is ten stories tall and is currently being repurposed as a mixed-use/residential facility. Originally known as the Pennsylvania Chocolate Company Building, it was owned by S.S. Marvin and designed by a Philadelphia architectural firm, Ballinger and Perrot.

View of the Carnegie Building in 1905 by photographer John Bragdon. Wikimedia Commons.

View of the Penn Rose Building, with Allegheny General Hospital in the background, 1954. The building was located in the Strip District of Pittsburgh. Brady Stewart Collection.

The distinction of being Pittsburgh’s tallest building passed from the Frick Building to the Farmers Deposit National Bank Building in 1910. Designed by architects Arlen & Harlow, it rose twenty-seven stories and 344 feet. Located at 500 Wood Street, it was acquired by Rockwell International Corporation in the mid-1960s and gained national fame when artist Judy Penzer painted a mural fifteen stories high on one face depicting Pittsburgh sports heroes Roberto Clemente, Bill Mazeroski, Jack Lambert, Joe Greene and Mario Lemieux. The building was demolished in 1997.

In 1912, the Henry Oliver Building at 535 Smithfield Street became the tallest structure in the city. Designed by Daniel Burnham, its twenty-five stories and height of 347 feet provided him the opportunity to regain his status as designer of the tallest building in the city. The steel-framed structure is clad with stone and terra cotta. The Oliver Building reigned as “top dog” until 1928, when the First National Bank Building, twenty-six stories and 387 feet high, was completed and became the city’s tallest, a title it held for only one year. It was located at 511 Wood Street. Actually, the original First National Bank Building, an eight-story structure, had been constructed in 1908 by the James L. Stuart Company, a predecessor of Mellon-Stuart. Daniel Burnham was responsible for designing the additional eighteen stories, which were constructed by Thompson, Jarret & Company, one of the first construction firms to build skyscrapers on a national basis.

View of the new Farmer’s Bank building from the roof of the Empire Building. The building was completed in 1903 and had twenty-four stories. It was demolished in 1997. Brady Stewart Collection.

The Grant Building was completed in 1929. Its forty stories towered over 310 Grant Street and provided an antenna for broadcasts by pioneer radio station KDKA. Henry Hornbostel and Eric Fisher Wood are the architects of record. Dwight P. Robinson & Company was responsible for its construction. The Grant Building surrendered its claim of tallest building to the Cathedral of Learning the next year.

The steel framing of the Cathedral of Learning, 1930. University of Pittsburgh Archives.

In 1908, the University of Pittsburgh hired architect Henry Hornbostel to develop a plan for its new forty-three-acre campus in Oakland. The resulting “Acropolis Plan” was a series of three-story Classical Revival buildings along the hillside, facing southeast toward Forbes and Fifth Avenues. In 1920, after five buildings had been constructed, the new chancellor, John Bowman, had a different vision. He envisioned a tall building, “a symbol of the life that Pittsburgh through the years had wanted to live.” He persuaded Andrew and Richard Mellon to purchase a fourteen-acre site in Oakland, Frick Acres, for its location. They suggested that their nephew, architect Edward P. Mellon, be retained to design the new campus. His concept was an interlocking labyrinth of six-story buildings along the four sides of the large block, with a skyscraper tower at one end. Chancellor Bowman thanked Mellon for his scheme, paid his retainer and then hired Gothic Revival architect Charles Klauder to conceive the tower, which quickly became known as the Cathedral of Learning. Klauder managed to combine the concept of the modern skyscraper with the principles of Gothic architecture. It indeed became a place where “[t]hey shall find wisdom here and faith—in steel and stone, in character and thought.”

Structural design of the cathedral was done by Homer S. Balcom, better known as the structural designer of the Empire State Building. Construction was performed by the Stone & Webster Engineering Company under the responsibility of Edward F. Blakeslee. The same firm also was responsible for design and construction of nearby Pitt Stadium. When the last girder was placed and the United States flag was hoisted at the top of the steel structure in 1929, it was the tallest building in the city. Although the first classes, in engineering drafting, were held in February 1931, the cathedral’s construction phase was not considered complete until June 1937.

At 582 feet high and forty-four stories, the Art Deco Gulf Building, at 707 Grant Street, was the tallest building in Pittsburgh when it was opened in 1932. The McClintic-Marshall Construction Company served as structural engineer, and Mellon-Stuart functioned as general contractor. The architects were Trowbridge & Livingston, with Edward P. Mellon assisting. The building is best noted for the changes in lighting of its pyramidal top to denote changes in the weather.

The Mellon-Stuart Company, now a subsidiary of Michael Baker International, was created in 1917 by the merger of the James L. Stuart Company and the Robert Grace Contracting Company, a firm founded by Thomas A. Mellon to provide general contracting services to the railroad industry. In addition to the Gulf Building, Mellon-Stuart also constructed the nearby 475-foot-tall, thirty-four-story Koppers Building.

The forty-two-story Cathedral of Learning is the tallest educational building in the Western Hemisphere. The 2,000-room and 2,529-window building was completed in 1937. View from the University of Pittsburgh Cathedral of Learning from Schenley Park, Oakland section of Pittsburgh, 1952. From http://brooklineconnection.com/history/Facts/Cathedral.html.

Gulf Tower, from US Steel Tower, photographed by Derek Jensen, 2007. Brady Stewart Collection.

In 1888, Charles D. Marshall and Howard McClintic graduated from Lehigh University with degrees in civil engineering. With three other associates, they formed the Shiffler Bridge Company, later part of the American Bridge Company. With financial help from Andrew Mellon, the pair then organized the McClintic-Marshall Construction Company, which by 1930 was the largest independent steel manufacturer in the country. In addition to the Gulf Building, their accomplishments include the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit, the longest span in the world at the time; the George Washington Bridge, which then became the longest span in the world; one half of the floors in the Empire State Building; and the lock gates for the Panama Canal.

The Aluminum Corporation of America moved into its new Pittsburgh headquarters in the thirty-story, 410-foot-tall Alcoa Building at 425 Sixth Avenue in 1953. Designed by architect Harrison & Abramovitz, it was the first major building in the world with an all-aluminum façade. The George A. Fuller Company served as general contractor.

In 1960, IBM decided to build a thirteen-story office building in Pittsburgh at 60 Boulevard of the Allies. The building is now known as the United Steelworkers building. The architectural firm selected, Curtis and Davis, had no experience with tall buildings; it turned to Worthington, Skilling, Helle, and Jackson for engineering support. John Skilling proposed a new concept, which he called a “framed tube.” The design was based on carrying all the vertical and horizontal loads in the external faces, leaving the interior column free. Skilling proposed designing the external frames as lattice trusses, much like the Ithiel Town trusses in covered bridges a century earlier. All the members were oriented diagonally, connected to one another to form a series of diamonds. It is believed this was the first major building to be designed without either internal framing or an independent concrete core handling transverse loads.

Responsibility for the design of this unique building was assigned to the firm’s New York office, managed by Leslie Robertson. Because of the multiple redundancy of the lattice truss, he elected to utilize Hardy Cross moment distribution to analyze it. He assembled a team of twenty analysts, each operating a mechanical desk calculator, to perform the many calculations required for the numerous iterations on which this method is based. In addition, because the lattice truss required all members to have roughly the same size, Robertson decided to take advantage of different strength steels, another novel concept for building design. Eventually, five different grades of steel were used, color-coded to minimize confusion during construction. U.S. Steel supplied the steel, and American Bridge erected it. U.S. Steel was so pleased with the design that it was a foregone conclusion that Robertson would be selected to design its new corporate center in Pittsburgh.

View of the new U.S. Steel Building, 1971. Completed in 1970, the U.S. Steel Building is the largest skyscraper in Pittsburgh and the fourth largest in Pennsylvania at sixty-four floors. Brady Stewart Collection.

The U.S. Steel Building, located at 600 Grant Street, was a remarkable engineering achievement when it was completed in 1971. At that time, it was the tallest building in the world outside New York and Chicago at sixty-four stories and 841 feet. It has a triangular footprint echoing downtown Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle, with indented corners to provide additional corner offices. Each of the floors and the roof has an area of 36,500 square feet, giving it the distinction of having the largest roof at its height of any building in the world.

The structural design for the building was by Leslie E. Robertson Associates. In an effort to demonstrate the practical aspects of Cor-Ten, a new weathering constructional steel formulated to resist corrosion despite remaining unpainted, the massive columns were exposed on the exterior of the building. The result was a distinctive dark-brown oxide coating that required minimum maintenance. In addition, the hollow columns were filled with water and a rust inhibitor to provide fire protection.

Between the design of the IBM Building and the U.S. Steel Building, Robertson’s major project was the design of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center. By that time, his office had acquired its first computer, an IBM 1620, and the programming language STRESS (Structural Engineering System Solver). STRESS was developed at MIT by Dr. Steven Fenves while on a postdoctoral engagement there before returning to his alma mater, the University of Illinois, and joining the faculty there. Dr. Fenves came to Carnegie Mellon University in 1971, eventually becoming head of its Department of Civil Engineering and being elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1976. The inspiration for STRESS was the success of COGO (Coordinate Geometry), a data conversion program used by surveyors to produce digital maps, developed earlier at MIT. STRESS eventually evolved into STRUDL (Structural Design Language), a basic platform for structural design and finite element analysis. When the STRESS package became generally available, an active users group immediately began to develop specialized versions of it. Like Robertson and his colleagues in New York, two young structural engineers employed by Pittsburgh’s Dravo Corporation, Richard Harig and David Heindel, developed DravoSTRESS, a powerful package customized for the analysis of complex bulk material–handling machines and heavy-duty industrial mill buildings.

Several notable tall buildings have been erected in Pittsburgh since construction of the U.S. Steel Building. One Oxford Centre, 300 Grant Street, opened in 1983. It has forty-five stories and towers 615 feet high. The same year, the BNY Mellon Building, 500 Grant Street, was completed. Originally intended to house the headquarters of the Dravo Corporation, it is the second-tallest building in the city at 725 feet, with fifty-four stories. Wilson Becket and Associates was the architect and Turner Construction the general contractor.

In 1984, Philip Johnson’s magnificent PPG Place was opened. Its Neo-Gothic design was influenced by the Allegheny County Courthouse and the Cathedral of Learning. Bounded by Wood Street, Forbes Avenue, Stanwix Street and the Boulevard of the Allies, the complex includes six towers, the tallest of which, One PPG Place, has forty stories reaching a height of 635 feet. The complex contains more than 1 million square feet of PPG Solarban windows, an effective demonstration of the owner’s primary product. Leslie E. Robertson Associates performed the structural engineering for the complex, which was constructed by a joint venture of Mellon-Stuart and Blount Brothers.

Located at the corner of Fifth and Liberty Avenues, Fifth Avenue Place, completed in 1988, was originally intended to have a height of 616 feet, but zoning restrictions limited it to thirty-one stories. The architect, Stubbins Associates, responded to the restriction by incorporating a long, slender mast protruding from a quartered pyramidal roof, producing a design evoking memories of superhero comic books. Mellon-Stuart served as general contractor for the building.

Completed in 2015, the thirty-three-story Tower at PNC Plaza, 300 Fifth Avenue, is credited with being one of the “greenest” tall buildings ever built. Among the sustainable attributes that won it a LEED Platinum rating are an operable double-skin façade and an innovative solar chimney in its core that together enable the building to operate at “net-zero” energy 30 percent of the time. Also inherent in its design are an onsite gray water reusage system and a large sloping roof that serves as a solar collector. The tower was constructed by P.J. Dick, with Buro Happold Pittsburgh providing the structural engineering.

Pittsburgh has been the home to numerous impressive sports stadia, including three incarnations of Exposition Park on the North Side from 1879 to 1915, Forbes Field from 1909 to 1969, the previously mentioned Pitt Stadium, Three Rivers Stadium from 1970 to 2001, Heinz Field from 2001 to present and PNC Park from 2001 to present. Forbes Field was designed by architect Charles Leavitt and constructed by the Nicola Building Company. The home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, it was located on seven acres of land near the Carnegie Library adjacent to Schenley Park in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. Remnants of the ballpark still stand, including a section of the brick outfield fence near where Bill Mazeroski hit a celebrated home run to win the 1960 World Series.

The architects for Three Rivers Stadium were Deeter, Richy Sipple and Michael Baker Jr. Osborn Engineering provided the structural engineering. A joint venture of Huber, Hunt & Nichols and Mascaro Corporation performed the construction. A unique characteristic of this multipurpose stadium was its ability to move large portions of the grandstand to accommodate the different layouts required for baseball and football. The system of trucks and hoists used to move the grandstands was designed and installed by the Engineering Works Division of Dravo Corporation. The stadium was imploded in 2001 and converted to parking for the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park and Pittsburgh Steelers and University of Pittsburgh Panther football games at Heinz Field. Heinz Field was designed by architects HOK Sports and WTW Architects, with structural engineering by Bliss & Nyitray Inc. A joint venture of Hunt Construction Group and the Mascaro Corporation built the stadium. HOK Sports and L.D. Astorino & Associates served as architects for PNC Park, with the Thornton-Tomasetti Group providing structural engineering and Dick Corporation performing construction of the facility.

The Civic Arena, originally the Civic Auditorium and later renamed Mellon Arena, was built in 1961. The arena, which covered 170,000 square feet, had the first retractable roof ever on a major sports venue in the world. It was constructed with just shy of three thousand tons of steel manufactured in Pittsburgh. From http://brooklineconnection.com/history/Facts/Cathedral.html.

Completed in 1961, the Civic Arena was a remarkable engineering and architectural achievement, the first major sports venue in the world with a retractable roof. Covering 170,000 square feet, the roof consisted of eight overlapping leaves, each supported on powered trucks running on a 417-footdiameter track at the roof ’s base and a universal pivot joint 109 feet above the center of the track. The pivot was supported by a massive tripod space frame cantilevered from one side.

The architect for the Civic Arena was Mitchell & Richey; Amman & Whitney designed the dome. The trucks were designed and supplied by Heyl and Patterson. Dick Corporation executed the foundation and reinforced concrete portion of the project. American Bridge erected the dome, utilizing a pair of custom-designed pie-shaped rolling steel scaffolds. Constructed initially as a venue for Pittsburgh’s Civic Light Opera, the arena quickly established a reputation as a home for the National Hockey League Pittsburgh Penguins, with the obvious nickname “the Igloo.” The last time the roof was opened was in 1995, for a musical concert. In 2010, the Penguins moved to a new, larger venue in nearby CONSOL Energy Center (now known as PPG Paints Arena). Despite passionate opposition by historical preservationists, the arena was demolished two years later.

No discussion of civil engineering achievements in Western Pennsylvania would be complete without mention of George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. and his observation wheel. Ferris was a well-established civil engineer and bridge builder in 1891 when he learned that Daniel Burnham, by now the director of works of the World Columbian Exposition, had issued a challenge to American engineers to design and build a signature monument for the upcoming World’s Fair in Chicago “that would surpass the Eiffel Tower.”

A civil engineering graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Ferris had spent five years building railroads and bridges for a variety of employers before moving to Pittsburgh in 1886 and establishing G.W.G. Ferris & Company, Inspecting Engineers. He then diversified by forming Ferris, Kaufman and Company to design and build major bridges across the Ohio River at Wheeling and Cincinnati. Ferris’s response to the fair promoters’ challenge was an impressive effort to surpass Eiffel: a large observation wheel with thirty-six cars, each capable of holding sixty people. For fifty cents, a fairgoer was treated to a twenty-minute trip around two revolutions of the wheel’s 864-foot circumference, including one uninterrupted nine-minute revolution. William F. Gronau, Ferris’s partner and fellow RPI alumnus, is credited with responsibility for the detailed design of the wheel, while Ferris concentrated on business aspects. After its rousing success in Chicago, the wheel later became a showpiece at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis in 1903. It was eventually scrapped in 1906.

Ferris wheel exposition, 1893. Historic Photos of the Chicago World’s Fair; text and captions by Russell Lewis, obtained from https://jcallahanphotoshop.wordpress.com/tag/chicago-worlds-fair.

Although some of the buildings discussed in this chapter are no longer in existence, those that remain are an important part of the civil engineering heritage of this region. It is appropriate that the contribution of the civil engineers who designed and constructed them be remembered and their legacy be shared with future generations of civil engineers.