Tag: Classical Architecture

  • Schuyler Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery

    Schuyler Mausoleum

    A simple square rustic mausoleum with Doric columns and a good stained-glass window in the back.

    Stained glass
  • Friday Mausoleum, Calvary Cemetery

    Friday mausoleum

    Everything seems a bit louder and more obvious in a Catholic cemetery. Here the name of the family is very large; the cross decorations are big (you would not find crosses at all on a Doric mausoleum in a Protestant cemetery), and even the cornices are fat and obvious. We should also mention artificial flowers even on the most expensive mausoleums, because nothing can discourage the faithful from leaving artificial flowers.

    The shape of this particular mausoleum is interesting. The details are classical and the decorations are Christian, but the shape is much more like the shape of the Egyptian temples Masons liked to build for themselves. We almost never find the Egyptian style in a Catholic cemetery, but we find echoes of it in the forms of some mausoleums.

    Statues of Hope (with anchor) and Faith (with book) guard the entrance. Faith has grown a good crop of shield lichens.

    Hope
    Faith
    Friday mausoleum
    Friday mausoleum

    Obviously old Pa Pitt likes this mausoleum. He took quite a few more pictures, but most of them are variations on the same themes. These should be just about enough to convey a good impression of the style and decorations.

  • Fleming Mausoleum, Allegheny Cemetery

    Fleming mausoleum

    Almost certainly modeled after the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, this is about as archaeologically correct as Doric architecture gets in Pittsburgh. It is one of the few peripteral mausoleum designs you will find in Pittsburgh cemeteries, peripteral meaning that it has columns on all sides.

    Fleming mausoleum
    Fleming mausoleum
  • R. R. Frisbee Mausoleum, Allegheny Cemetery

    An antebellum burial vault, built in 1858 in a restrained classical style. It looks wonderfully ancient and mysterious when you happen on it back in this woodsy section of the cemetery.

  • H. P. Sloterbeck Mausoleum, Allegheny Cemetery

    A Doric mausoleum with rusticated stone: a very common sort of design, but very dignified, and much more picturesque when we add autumn leaves. The stained glass inside is a standard design from the catalogue.