Do it! I may sound a little biased having been born there, but Pittsburgh is in need of a little progressive architecture. The industrial aspects are dead or dying, but the skeletons remain. You are correct about the ongoing development, and I think that there is a market for the modern/green house. Plus, all of those hillsides. Never a boring design moment.

Also, Pittsburgh has more character than any town I have lived or visited.

I think it’s great. There's this area where the existing infrastructure looks amazing (old buildings, tight streets…has a little euro feeling to it) and it’s still quite cheap to get a super beautiful loft style spaces for not much money.
I have a friend who has his shop there and you can tell there are some signs of gentrification in the area (which to me doesn’t seem like a bad idea).
Anyways, he has a high-end mechanic shop that specializes in Mini Coopers (this is where I take my puppy of course) but right next to his place there's a really neat brewery which has been cleaning up the area and it seems its creating a ripple effect around the adjacent properties.
I attached a Google map image of the area I am talking about. Perhaps you might want to check the area.
*Since I work and live in NYC, all I can say is that if I was setting my practice in PA this would be the area for me*

I love the burgh'. i was raised there and now live in SD. There is a side of me that would love to return! But the weather here is awesome.

Francisco: you must have the wrong city with your map. Not anywhere in Pittsburgh that I have ever seen!

ooooops!!!!! guys. Quite embarrassing I was referring to Philadelphia.
Replied too quick and without paying attention. (perhaps multi tasking too much today)
My apologies.
:)

Thanks, archie. I was thinking the same thing. I thought maybe it was the North Side of Pittsburgh, which I don't know so well.

An architect I spoke with in Pittsburgh before I went to arch school said that he set up shop in Pgh precisely because it wasn't yet oversaturated with architects, especially more progressive architects. This was 4 yrs. ago.

It's a great city to live in, and there are parts of Pgh -- eastern end of Strip District into Lawrenceville, Bloomfield, Friendship, for instance that have similar conditions to the one described by FDB in Philly. South Side was still somewhat affordable when I lived there, and still my favorite part of Pittsburgh.

Stop by Dee's on Carson St. and have one for me.

Ahhh, Pittsburgh... It's a small and cozy city, and of course, it has some good sides and bad sides, too.
Once you settle down in Pgh, it's very difficult to move out of the city, due to its low low low cost of living. Plus, it is a small city, and that means its market is small, too. The city has tried in recent years to attract more tech companies and financial companies, but to me, they haven't been that much successful (ie, giving out huge tax credit to bring those national department stores in down town area, instead of integrating residential blocks within existing urban fabric, was a huge mistake). The city has a lot of potential to become a great city, but I'm not sure whether they are doing a good job or not.
Anyway, if you decide to move to Pittsburgh, you should get a teaching job at Carnegie Mellon department of architecture and make some connections (most of the faculty members are practicing architects), and it won't be hard to find some cheap interns from the school, too.

I did an exhibit design at Carnegie Museum of Art and was very, very impressed with Pittsburgh. It's got a bit of a small town feel but with tons of money. Everyone I met was nice, and the city seems very accessible. The way Pittsburgh is sited, with rivers and hills and bridges, it reminds me of Portland Oregon. It's visually very striking.

Plus they put fries on every possible food item there. What's not to love?

my first french kiss took place in mount oliver. back when pittsburgh was a steel town.

If you like dirty muscular cities, then Pittsburgh is for you. I am a recent emigrant of that city. You aren't the first person to try out that line of logic on the Steel City (pronounced Still city, i.e. "did y'inz see the stiller game on sunday?"). Many of my former professors at cmu came to Pittsburgh with similar asperations. It's not impossible to start a progressive design firm there. However, the lack of contemporary housing is not due to lack of talent already in the area. Although there is a recent push to bring in new industry, there is a major statistic which has kept this from translating directly to the residential building industry. The population in Pittsburgh has decreased by over 40% between the late 70's and now. Because of this it is not unheard of to purchase a large brick house/mansion in the Friendship area for a little over 100,000. And nothing says status to young tech types like marble cherubs on the mantle piece.

The design community is pretty small. It definately revolves around CMU's architecture department. Some notable firms are:

EDGE studio http://www.edge-studio.com/
Gary Carlough (one of the principles) is a great person to get in touch with. His firm opens up half of their office as a gallery for progessive architecture with revolving shows monthly.

SO-AD http://www.so-ad.com/main.html
The youngest firm in Pittsburgh. Your one stop shop for parametric design, web design, theatre sets, and blistering indie rock drumming.

DGGP www.dggp.com
Kevin Gannon is a very skilled architect at merging strong design with sustainable methods and the weird pittsburgh industrial aesthetic. His Pittsbugh Glass Center is probably the best example of contemporary design that is rooted in the vernacular club footed aesthetic.

Also Pittsburgh has some of the finest turn of the century Beux Arts buildings in this country. Henry Hornbostel created some very nice work including CMU's original campus.

On the down side the New Urbanists run deep here. Which is another reason contemporary work tends to struggle here.

So good luck, throw back some Iron Cities, and slam a Wholly's fish sandwich. You'll be layering hooded sweatshirts 4 deep in no time.

kinch, what year did you graduate?

A bit of a surreal experience to hear that someone wants to move to Pittsburgh to get ahead in life. I miss it dearly, but growing up in the city on Troy Hill, in the North Side, I couldn't wait to leave.

7 years later, I'm beginning to think it may be time to move back. But there are a few things that have kept me from doing so. The weather is one, but I could get over that. More so is the general culture of Pittsburgh. While it has great institutions like the Carnegie (Car-NAY-ghee) museum, the Heinz Symphony Hall, the Warhol Museum, and the O'Reilly, it just seems to be unable to move past that blue collar mentality. This is not a bad thing unto itself, but when seeking change within the city, which it desperately needs, it becomes a problem. For instance, essentially the same politcians have been running the city for 100 years. Bob O'Connor's election as mayor is nothing more than a passing of the torch to the same leadership that has allowed the city to dwindle. In other words, Pittsburgh is VERY conservative.

So, when considering that you want to start a progressive architecture firm, Pittsburgh is a great city in need of people that are willing to fight for change. If you think you're up for it, I say go. I'm not far behind you...

Oh, could I go for a Primanti Bros. steak and cheese......mmmmmmm

While we're talking about Pittsburgh, it turns out I'll have a few hours to kill there while taking Amtrak back to Chicago from NYC over the holidays. I'll be arriving at around 4 PM on Friday December 30th and leaving around 11 PM. What's worth seeing in downtown that doesn't require a car?

"sustainability thrown in for good measure"?
Hmmm.

Living in Gin, dowtown you could go hang at Point Park, but it will be winter. Architecturally, there is Vinoly's David L. Lawrence Convention center, which I actually haven't seen in its completed state, Philip Johnson's PPG building (glass cathedral thing -- yuck -- but I think they have ice skating in the plaza in winter), the courthouse by H.H. Richardson, O'Reilly Theatre by Michael Graves, the Alcoa building is kind of cool (don't know the architect), and, my favorite, a sort of obscure Mies building on the Duquesne University campus. It's not fantastic, but it's worth a look; it's the science building, you'll know it when you see it. There is also Michael Van Valkenburg's riverside walk on the Allegheny side of downtown, which sounds cool, but like the convention center was built after I left Pgh. The strip district, which is just northeast of downtown has a lot of shops, markets, and "design-y" stuff -- they were calling it the "Design District" for a while.

There is a good record store (if you're into sort of indie, cult film, metal, comic book type stuff) just outside of downtown in the strip district -- I forget what its called though. Anybody?

Eide's?

Vinoly's Convention Center went up right before I left Pittsburgh in Summer of 2004. I remember there was a lot of talk in my office about the construction team workers saying they wouldn't let their families go inside, or some such side remarks. Never made me feel 100% safe about going inside. Plus a couple dudes died while making it after a bit of the structure collapsed due to the wrong size bolts being used. But I guess the suspension cable construction is quite a feat and people seem to like it. In my opinion it looks good from afar, like crap up close, and like I said, I havent been inside.

I think every now and then of starting a practice in Pittsburgh when I finally become an architect, but honestly, there's no money there and as has been said it's unbelievably conservative. I had one old man spout off nonsense about Agent Orange right before he kicked my chair as I was eating, and another old man try to start a fight with me after tripping over my shoe on a bus. This is right around the time Bush was rallying support for the war, and I'm half-Japanese. I'm not going to say that these too factors were involved but I'll let you make your own conclusions.

You'll only have a couple of hours in Pittsburgh, Living in Gin, and late at night on a friday, so you won't be able to see most of those buildings mentioned above- they will be locked up. When you get there, you are arriving on the edge of town near the strip district (place where produce is delivered and wholesaled, not the lady on a pole kind of strip district..) and the convention center. You could walk accross the street and see the new convention center and river walk before it gets dark, then head to the strip district, which is away from downtonw, about 1 block, and have some fun. Lots of nightclubs and retaurants, everything from traditional italian food to young person bars. Get a tattoo! Have an Iron City beer! (It's not very good, but hey, its a city icon...) Then ask someone where Pirmanti's is. It is a local diner that makes a famous sandwich- it is where the truckers delivering produce to the strip district eat late at night and they were in a hurry- so the sandwhiches all have french fries and cole slaw ON the sandwich. Have fun.

And by the way, yes, Pittsburgh is conservative, but that makes it kind of a nice stable place to raise a family. However, there are lots and lots of new imports to Pittsburgh coming for the biomedical, high tech, universities, etc., and they add a new flavor to the city. There are only a few architects doing modern architecture, so its a big open field. My firm has been very profitable, and it has been very easy to get work and grow. Very few of our clients want 'aggressive modern" but thats not what we do, so they would not be coming to us anyway. There are only like three firms in town who do that genre of work, so it is still a niche market open for some more competition. You can also get a nice old house in a decent neighborhood for under $80,000.

It's "Primanti Brothers," not "Pirmanti's," archie.

It's pronounced like "PER-ME-NI's" though.

:D

Oh, I agree with you, guiggster; I hate to say this, but there are a lot of racists in Pittsburgh... my landlord used to drop "n" bomb, and people stare you if you are not white. I know there are some "trashes," no matter wherever you go, but that city has a lot more than you think. It's too bad.

i second wackingboy's thoughts. i'm also originally from pittsburgh, and i think its a great town. pittsburgh has way more than its fair share of powerful cultural institutions for a city of its size...the problem is that the institutions seem to have no real relationship to the public. very working class. not that there is anything wrong with that...

on the other hand, there is something strangely more cosmopolitan about pittsburgh than most medium sized cities in the U.S. it really has its own identity...agree?

I'd be curious to hear what benchmark those of you that labled P'Burgh as conservative are measuring against. If you look at recent election data, P'Burgh and Philly went Blue and the rest of the state ("The Alabama in between" as a previous poster mentioned) went all-Red. Also, P'Burgh's blue collar background would typically align itself w/ labor union friendly party such as the Democrats.

I guess if you were to compare P'Burgh to Eugene, OR or SanFran/Berkeley, it would seem pretty dang conservative though!

I've been to P'Burgh a few times (including Primanti's) and have checked out a few of the more modern firms to sort of measure up the competition. I would describe them as being "modern-lite" - nobody's really pushing the envelope.

There are some firms who theoretically would like to push the envelope but the market is really thin, period.

The terms of Pittsburgh's convservative nature have little to do with politics (and to avoid this becoming a political discussion, I'll be brief):

The city is conservative because it hasn't changed in the last 50 years. Pittsburgh likes being Pittsburgh. This city doesn't want to do things that other cities have done to be successful. They will elect the same people over and over again, hoping against hope, that they will maintain the status quo. I believe that's why a lot of young people ditch the city. They see they can't have an impact here, they'd be fighting a lot of blue collar tradition.

But again, as someone said above, that does make Pittsburgh a nice stable place, with its own identity, to raise a family. Speaking of that though, my old neighborhood is starting to fall apart. I walked to school for 13 years (in the snow, with holes in my shoes!) and both of my old schools are facing major problems. One is closed and the other has been losing attendence on a regular basis. So for all the stability, you really can't save it all.

[ ]http://www.image.com/image.jpg[/img]

The Point Park that never was. Would have been a huge complex/traffic hub by Frank lloyd Wright. Wonder how that might have changed the city...

Pittsburgh rocks! Unfortunately, the number of interesting firms is greatly outnumbered by a lot of mediocre ones. There are a lot of cool things about the city that have nothing to do with architecture. Plus housing is cheap.


Here are some of the things you have to do when you are there:

Eat Breakfast at Deluca's in the Strip.
Go to the Mattress Factory (its an art gallery)
Take a trip to the Red White and Blue near Kennywood for cheap second hand clothes.
Eat Indian Food, cause it beats the pants off the stuff in New York at least in my opinion. There is a place on Penn Ave that's really good.
Take a walk through Chatham's campus, it's a beautifully wooded and hilly place plus you will see houses by Gropius, Eisenman, and Venturi in the vicinity.

These are only a few things, but I really loved the five years I spent there.

Hello,
I am not sure if anyone is still monitoring this thread. I currently live in pittsburgh and have been looking at building a home in the murrysville area (east of pitt). The hills, industrial heritage, reasonable land costs, etc. seem like a natural fit for a modern home. I was turned-on to modern arcitecture after seeing falling water. I am not an architect. I assume that house is considered modern. I then ran across the dwell home by re4achitecture. I liked the home and the idea sounded interesting (a 200K modular home with around 2000sqft) although I wasn't compleely excited about the mobile home look it had. However, when I contacted them they informed me that their 200K modular home would actually cost around 500K-750K depending on where you have it built and material coices. Apparently, they still won the competition despite a 300% cost overrun.

Are their any modern residential architects in the pittsburgh area that someone could recommend? Is it possible to build a modern home on a budget? If an architect is out of my financial reach are there any stock blueprints available for modern homes? Any other ideas I haven't thought of to keep me out of a ranch style home in a track development? Thanks

Hi Tim;
I am an architect in the Pittsburgh area. We are currently designing a modern home in the Latrobe area. The problem is that there are many builders who build inexpensively, but hey build 'generic' looking houses that look like Ryan homes. That is their mentality, and what they can build with their eyes closed. If you want something different, you have to go to a custom builder. There are many good custom builders in the area, but the costs are around $200 a square foot. There are very few stock plans for modern homes, and most of them come out of the west coast, so they need modifications for the local climate. I would start out trying to work with an architect if your budget allows. There are different ways of doing this. I am doing a house design for someone now where we are doing the 'preliminary design'- the plan and the elevations in sketch form, and then they are paying a draftsman to do the 'builders set' of drawings. I am doing this for a builder who is building a different type of house than is normally available, but still traditional. She may be interested in talking to you if like. Anyway, the drawings this way will end up costing around $4000 or $5000, and they are getting exactly what they want. Send me your email or phone number, and I can go into more detail with you if you like.

as a famous dead person, i say go for it...

...since when is a racist, conservative city "a good place to raise a family" (see above)?...anyway, Pittsburgh is a pretty cool city nonetheless, and Living in Gin I hope you made it to the Andy Warhol Museum in your few hours there.

I want to bump this one...what are 'good' neighborhoods to live in in Pittsburgh, and why are they good?

just thinking...

Ahh...gotta send some love out to the 'burgh...spent seven years there, and if I could have found a job, I'd have stayed...

Tim, I'd recommend Gerard Damiani...he's done some very nice work on tight budgets....www.sdapgh.com...that will give you contact information.

And, I have to argue that Uncle Sam's is the place for sandwiches...yes, primanti bro's is the place to get something to sop up the beer, but damn, Uncle Sam's sweet potato fries are awesome!!!

As for indian...udipi's, near monroeville...southern indian, all vegeterian...looks like a dive, but all the Indian/Pakistani people I knew went to that place...

Gruen...the south side is considered really hot at the moment...even written up in the NYtimes two weeks back....close to night life, convenient access out of the city (if you know the routes)

Lawrenceville, at least on the side closer to the city center, has some nice older homes that you can get for a decent price...again, location is why I like it...easy to get downtown, or out, some nice galleries and restaurants around liberty avenue toward bloomfield....

For posh, people go to Shadyside or Squirrel Hill...the prices reflect that, though....but gotta love their business districts...self-contained...you live around those areas, just walk all the time....

Southside is hot now, but way overpriced. Up and coming neighborhoods with nice urban housing, good fixer uppers are Highland Park, Lawrenceville, and East Liberty. Squirrel Hill and Edgewood are always nice and affordable, but more grown up and family oriented. Shadyside is for the young urban apartment dweller with money.
Check out POP CITY, a weekly email news mag that a local loft developer sends out.
http://www.popcitymedia.com/
It features a different neighborhood each week plus local bulding activities, sponsored in part by the local AIA and COmmunity Design Center.

Hey Dyee, Yunz come on back dawntawn if you still want to be here. Architects with 4 plus years of experience are terribly difficult to find right now. We fight over them.

Hmm, tempting. I'm in that group, and I miss the 'burgh at times. What could you pay, though? That's always the kicker...

I just moved to Philadelphia after living in Pittsburgh for 9 years. Here are the places to live:

Shadyside: As you'll hear from everyone else in this thread, it's pricy. But the places are usually nice (with a big asterisk next to "usually"), and you're close to Walnut St., the place where the city's insufferably rich go to shop. If you ask me, it's not worth living there. You can get a much cheaper place in another neighborhood within walking distance, such as...

Friendship: Like the more posh/expensive Shadyside, but quieter and about $500/mo cheaper. Mostly old Victorian homes.

Lawrenceville: Artsy/coffeehouse/gallery neighborhood. A little gritty. Warehouses becoming lofts. Cheap rent. There's a company called Wylie Holdings renting out these type of places for reasonable prices.

Bloomfield: Pittsburgh's Little Italy. Again, cheap rent, dense row houses mostly populated by Italian immigrants and their families. Great markets, restaurants, bars, coffeeshops, and Tessaro's, makers of the best hamburger you'll ever have in your life.

Squirrel Hill: Great neighborhood, one of the largest Jewish neighborhoods in the country. Marginally cheaper than Shadyside.

I'm a little less into the South Side. It's really just a string of bars...for about 25 blocks.

Pittsburgh's a great city. In many ways, I consider it my home. Be prepared for year-round Steelers coverage.

myriam, remember that the cost of living is low here too! You can buy a decent house for $100,000 to $150,000 or less. Rents for a 1 bedroom are around 500 to 600 a month. But to answer your question, we just offered someone llicensed with 6 years of experience $46,000 plus a nice benefit package.

yeah I'll second, and third everybodys comments ont he neighborhoods mentioned. Although I dont live in any of them. I live downtown right now, after having just moved to the city, and find it pretty convienent with everything except parking. I just park like 8 blocks way under the 16th street bridge and ride my bike in a few blocks. I try my best to get around mostly by bike, so downtown is pretty convenient. I can ride to southside, the strip, northside all within minutes, and where I work up on penn out near east liberty ion not too much longer. the neighborhoods are smallish, so its really easy to get around quicj, for the most part.
yeah rent is cheap here, I could be paying less but I am living where I want so I can pay a tad bit more. all in all not too bad of a deal.

archie - where do you work?

also, I got my apt through wedoproperty.com ... might be something you want, might not.

oh, plus the mountain biking in and around the city and region is very good

Archie...thanks for the offer...and indeed, I would consider it, had I actually had 4 years of experience under my belt...as it is, I have a few months here and there, a post-graduate degree and one year working at CMU's School of architecture....Guess my position, cause it ain't there no more ;)

dml955i - back to your original question... My work is aggressive modern residential with sustainability thrown in for good measure. Doesn't seem like there's a whole lot of modernism (especially residential) going on in Pittsburgh right now, but there is a considerable amount of development and re-development happening...

Just some food for thought here. Pittsburgh is great but the "doesn't seem like there's a whole lot of modernism" comment could apply to 99% of the cities in the USA. Pretty much all of the mid-atlantic states and all the sunbelt would apply to the modernism comment and the economy there is growing exponentially faster than anything in PA. Even the lack of good residential architects applies given my recent trips to Raleigh and Orlando. Didn't see nothing good there.

My point is picking Pittsburgh because of your perceived lack of modern arch and a hopeful revival of the city economy seems weak. The city is great from my few experiences and it does have a character that a place like Orlando doesn't have. That said, move there because you love the place. Not for the state of the built environment and economic reasons, because for those things there are better places to start a firm.