D.C. architectural enthusiasts visit Mt. Lebanon Municipal Building
Members of the Art Deco Society of Washington, D.C., visit the Mt. Lebanon Municipal Building during their tour of the Pittsburgh area.
Visitors take a look from the municipal building’s balcony.
The distinctive Mt. Lebanon design behind the municipal building’s information desk.
Louise Sturgess points out some features in the municipal building’s entrance.
Louise Sturgess points out some features in the municipal building’s entrance, with Jim Linz taking in the sights.
Distinctive features of the Mt. Lebanon Municipal Building’s interior
Distinctive features of the Mt. Lebanon Municipal Building’s interior
Distinctive features of the Mt. Lebanon Municipal Building’s interior
A visitor takes photos of the ceiling in the Mt. Lebanon Municipal Building’s entryway.
A Georgian design for the Mt. Lebanon Municipal Building was rejected.
Members of the Art Deco Society of Washington, D.C., visit the Mt. Lebanon Municipal Building during their tour of the Pittsburgh area.
A bus full of people pulled up to the Mt. Lebanon Municipal Building on Nov. 22, and it had nothing to do with deer.
Members of the Art Deco Society of Washington, D.C., were taking a tour of the Pittsburgh area’s architectural gems and made sure they included a stop in Mt. Lebanon.
Among those taking a Sunday afternoon to greet them was Louise Sturgess, executive director of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, who provided details about the building.
“The commissioners always wanted Mt. Lebanon to be seen as a progressive place,” she told the visitors as they gathered in the Commission Chambers. “Although you would be looking to historical styles for the residential article, the government – the way the community was managed – would always be forward-thinking.”
And so the commissioners scrapped a proposed Georgian Colonial Williamsburg design for the municipal building in favor of what was then a much more modern approach.
Enter a local architect and his unique contribution to the municipality.
“This is the only documented design by William H. King Jr. that we know, and there was a major controversy in the community as they shifted from a traditional municipal building in the Georgian style to what eventually was created and dedicated in September 1930,” Sturgess said.
A Baltimore native, King moved to Mt. Lebanon in 1923. He had arrived in Pittsburgh to study at Carnegie Technical Schools, now Carnegie Mellon University, before spending two years extending his education overseas at the foremost architectural institution of the era.
“Because of how he was inspired by attending the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and seeing what was going on in the design world at that time, he proposed a very radical, progressive plan, although there are still lots of classical elements to this design,” Sturgess, a Mt. Lebanon resident, said about what became the municipal building.
“I feel that it has harmony. It fits in with the community,” she said. “But it also gives you that wow and a sense of progress and efficiency, stateliness and grandeur, all words that I think the municipality wanted to have associated with itself.”
The cost of the building was $240,000, and its construction integrated 1,400 pounds of aluminum, “the metal of choice in the ’20s and ’30s,” Sturgess explained.
“This building is really a one-of-a-kind gem,” she said. “It’s a very different kind of municipal building in terms of its design than most of the other municipal buildings in this region.”
The D.C. Art Deco Society was formed in 1982 as a preservation group, member Jim Linz explained. He arranged for the tour.
“There’s a lot to attract people to Pittsburgh,” he explained, “but even people in Pittsburgh don’t realize what some of the treasures are that they have.”
About the Mt. Lebanon Municipal Building, Linz said:
“I particularly like the stair railings. The whole building is very nice, but I’m drawn to the railings because they’re something I haven’t seen before.”