Burke Building

Pittsburgh’s oldest office building opened in 1836 and was built for two brother who were attorneys. Robert and Andrew Burke came to Pittsburgh from Ireland and commissioned an office to be built here, near Market Square, the site of the city’s first courthouse.

Older brother Robert died the year this opened, but Andrew, an 1829 graduate of Western University of Pennsylvania (later the University of Pittsburgh), enjoyed a long career in the law. Andrew also ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Democrat in 1858.

The Burke Building was designed by an English immigrant architect, John Chislett. Constructed of locally quarried sandstone, it was the only building in this neighborhood to survive the massive fire in 1845 that burned down much of the city. For a time the building housed a succession of restaurants. The interior is handsomely remodeled and still has the original fireplaces.

Cass Plumbing, in the newer structure to the right of the Burke Building, had a shop that was demolished for PPG Place. The owners sued PPG and the city and got this building erected especially for them in a settlement.

John Chislett

Pittsburgh’s first important architect, John Chislett was also a sculptor and painter — that’s his self-portrait above. Chislett came to the city in 1833 from England and immediately got a commission to build a Presbyterian church. The congregation also wanted a graveyard; that project became Allegheny Cemetery, which Chislett designed and then oversaw as supervisor for three decades, until he was buried there after he died in 1869.

Chislett’s biggest commission was to design a successor to the original courthouse in nearby Market Square, which one local newspaper in 1830 had denounced as “a disgrace to the city.” Its cornerstone was laid in 1835 on Grant’s Hill, though the imposing domed structure was not finished until 1841.

When it was destroyed in a fire four decades later, Henry Richardson got the job to replace it. His third Allegheny County Courthouse is still in use and is regarded as a masterpiece of the Boston architect’s Richardsonian Romanesque style, widely popular at the time the first skyscrapers arose.