Pennsylvania Architectural Heritage: The Preservation Movement in the Keystone State, 1800-1950

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania Architectural Heritage: The Preservation Movement in the Keystone State, 1800-1950 The primary focus of this series of four articles is the architectural heritage of Pennsylvania through the past three centuries. However, in the context of history, architecture is neither an isolated creation nor an assured cultural resource for the future. As buildings ore the products of the interaction of many facets of a society, so. too, the preservation of architecture is the result of...
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Pittsburgh’s Park of a Century

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pittsburgh’s Park of a Century Currently ranked first as the Most Livable City by the Rand-McNally annual survey, Pittsburgh is reveling in media exposure comparable to the boosterism of the town of Zenith which writer Sinclair Lewis satirized in his novel, Babbit. Accompanying the zealous, self-proclaimed promotion, however, has been a healthy dose of self­-examination, with the city’s less enviable qualities suddenly...
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Old World Influences on Pennsylvania Gardens

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Old World Influences on Pennsylvania Gardens Quaker merchants who followed founder William Penn (1644-1718) to his beloved colony planted formal, English-style gardens amidst the native forest landscape. An ornamental garden suitable for a family of means in Great Britain in the seventeenth century consisted of a residence with a series of three terraces descending from the rear elevation. The upper terrace, often used as an extension of...
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