[Illustration: SKETCH OF CIVIC CENTER AS PROPOSED BY PITTSBURGH
ARCHITECTS.]
[Illustration: PLAN OF PROPOSED CIVIC CENTER.]
It would substitute for a mean and shabby portion of the city an
ensemble beautiful and effective, and it would bring a large open
space to the very edge of a poor tenement section. Owing to the local
topography, the proximity of the improvement would not change the
character of a large portion of that section; but it would bring civic
art almost to the doors of the residents of the neighborhood. My
judgment is that the plan does not go far enough. I shall reserve my
supplementary suggestion, however, for more appropriate consideration
at another point in this paper.
One more comment might be made upon the aesthetic possibilities of
the business section before we pass to the tenement district. It is
the universal experience of towns that the first streets parallel the
water courses. As the business portion of Pittsburgh is located on
that tapering point of land where the rivers draw together at an acute
angle, it follows that streets must meet at similar angles, and the
cross streets multiply them. Very often at these intersections, small
triangles are formed, which might have been preserved as open spaces
at slight expense before the demand for building room became so great.
Although that opportunity has passed, the sharp building lot corners,
with the conspicuousness given by a directly approaching street, still
offer to architects an opportunity that is rare in American cities.
Little advantage is taken of this opportunity. The Wabash Station is
one illustration of how much more interesting from an architectural
standpoint business Pittsburgh may some day be made.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE MANY PITTSBURGH TRIANGLES WHICH WOULD LEND
THEMSELVES TO ARCHITECTURAL TREATMENT.]
[Illustration: PITTSBURGH FROM THE SOUTH SIDE--A CITY OF CONTRASTS.]
[Illustration: SECOND AVENUE.]