Pittsburgh Cemeteries

Tag: Classical Architecture

  • Berryman Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery

    This mausoleum seems to have received its first burial in 1927; if Father Pitt were to take a guess, he might say it had been waiting around empty for some time before that. There are none of the quirks of the advancing twentieth century: this is a timeless Doric temple, simple but correct. The stained glass inside is modestly attractive, though the cross is a bit out of place—it does not seem to be a thing that could naturally exist in the landscape. Old Pa Pitt is also not sure why there is a cheese hovering above it. The bronze palms on the doors are also notable.

  • Barber Monument, Homewood Cemetery

    A sort of Potemkin classical façade is flanked by benches that embrace the family headstones below. To judge by the earliest burial in the plot, this monument was probably put up about 1917.

  • Pargny Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery

    All right angles and sharp edges (even the urns are square), this is what you do in an age when modern architecture is in fashion, but you don’t quite want to give up on classical style. It received its first burial in 1940, so it was probably built in the 1930s.

  • Selden Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery

    This looks like a construction from the middle twentieth century, say 1930 or later; the imperfect on-line records for the cemetery have no dates for most of the burials in it.

    The polished granite is expensive, but resists the industrial grime that darkened other monuments in Pittsburgh’s hell-with-the-lid-off age.

  • Evans Monument, Homewood Cemetery

    This classical stele stands over the Evans family plot, with the typical array of identical individual headstones in front of it. It was probably put up in about 1920, the date of the earliest burial in the plot.