Pittsburgh Cemeteries

Tag: Romanesque Architecture

  • Redfern Mausoleum, McKeesport and Versailles Cemetery

    Old Pa Pitt loves McKeesport with an unreasoning love. It was once the second city of Allegheny County, and it was the center of its own distinct Mon Valley metropolitan area that was quite different from Pittsburgh culturally, The city had its own traditions, and—what is relevant here—its own architects and artisans. The mausoleums in the McKeesport and Versailles Cemetery, a small but splendid rural cemetery just outside downtown McKeesport, are quite different in style from the ones in Pittsburgh cemeteries.

    Here, for example we have a mausoleum that Father Pitt must confess he cannot really classify. It has the sloping sides and general shape of an Egyptian mausoleum; it has rusticated stone that suggests Romanesque architecture, and columns with medieval capitals; and it has a Chippendale open pediment that suggests the baroque. Yet in this curious mishmash there is no disharmony. It looks the way it ought to look. Father Pitt does not know whether this was the design of a local architect or a mausoleum from a dealer’s stock catalogue, but he does know that he has never seen anything like it in Pittsburgh.

  • Verner Monument, Highwood Cemetery

    An imposing Romanesque monument with a good balance of overall form and detail.

  • C. H. Kerr Mausoleum, Allegheny Cemetery

    Architecturally, this is identical to the Henry mausoleum, also in the Allegheny Cemetery. Only the statue on top is different.

  • Winter Mausoleum, St. John Vianney Parish Cemetery

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    There is only one mausoleum in this cemetery, but it is an unusually fine one; it looks like an architect-designed mausoleum rather than a dealer’s stock model. The Romanesque arch and pilasters are in exactly the right proportions to the whole, and the carved decoration is beautiful without being ostentatious. It has even kept its bronze doors. The landscaping adds to the picturesque effect: large cedars have grown up on both sides, making the whole plot look like some Norman-era English churchyard.

  • Young Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery

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    Another mausoleum in the style Father Pitt called “Doric Romanesque” when he saw it in the Davis mausoleum nearby. But this is, to his eye, a much more successful design. The Doric columns are fatter and support a heavy stone arch directly; there is no cacophony between light and heavy as on the Davis mausoleum. Everything looks weighty and primitive. It is not Father Pitt’s favorite style, but if we accept it as a style, this structure carries it off where the Davis mausoleum fails.