THE SIGNATURE DIMENSION STONES USED BY LONGFELLOW, ALDEN AND HARLOW, ARCHITECTS - IN CLASSICAL PITTSBURGH ARCHITECTURE FROM 1887 – 1910 (Invited Presentation)

The Pittsburgh firm of Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow Jr., (1854 – 1934), Frank Ellis Alden (1855 – 1908), and Alfred Branch Harlow (1857 – 1927) designed 139 buildings in the Pittsburgh region between 1887 and 1910. The commissions, the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and the Carnegie Music Hall, c. 1895 and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and Carnegie Museum of Art, c. 1907 were funded by the Pittsburgh philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. The 1907 building is the signature design and incorporates within the interior spaces, three-two varieties of marbles, fossil limestones, and red, green and yellow breccia marbles, which were imported from the classic quarries in Algeria, Croatia, Greece, France, Ireland, and Italy. The sources for the sandstone's and granite rock used in the exterior cladding and in the foundation are of late 19^th and early 20^th century quarries in northeastern Ohio, Pittsburgh, eastern Tennessee, and Vermont.

Longfellow, Alden, and Harlow were born in New England who became classmates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Architecture from 1876 to 1878. In the early 1880’s, Longfellow and Alden worked for the Boston architect Henry Hobson Richardson. While Harlow was employed by the New York architecture firm of McKim, Mead, and White. In 1886, Longfellow resigned from the Richardson office to form his own firm with Harlow. A year later, Alden joined the Boston firm of Longfellow, Alden, and Harlow that opened a second office in Pittsburgh. They quickly found successes in early architecture designs with the Duquesne Club c. 1889, the 1891 Bank of McKeesport, the Braddock Carnegie Library extension and Carnegie Hall, c. 1893, and the Carnegie Steel Building, c. 1895 now demolished. More than a century later, these commissions are listed on the national register of historic places by the United States Department of the Interior. A year removed from the completion of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Music Hall, Longfellow resigned from the firm returning to his Boston office. In 1896, Alden and Harlow formed their own office in Pittsburgh that would go on to build another fifteen Carnegie Libraries among other national registered buildings.

We present a review of preferred building stones selected by the architects for their interior and exterior uses.