The Spring Hill Elementary School is located at 1351 Damas Street in the
Spring Hill neighborhood of
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Ma ...
. The building was first constructed in 1896 in the
Classical Revival
Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing styl ...
style and serves as the elementary school for residents of the Spring Hill area.
History
The current school was originally constructed as the Seventh Ward Public School and designed by architect Joseph Stillburg in the then
Allegheny City
Allegheny City was a municipality that existed in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania from 1788 until it was annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907. It was located north across the Allegheny River from downtown Pittsburgh, with its southwest border formed by ...
. The neighborhood of Spring Hill was settled predominantly by
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
immigrants, one of whom, Damas Lutz owned the land on what is now Damas Street, and he was the one to sell the land for the original construction of the two-story brick school. In 1907 Allegheny City was annexed into the City of Pittsburgh which resulted in a shift of boundaries and wards. This effected the Spring Hill area and by 1925 the school became known as the Spring Hill Elementary School after the area in which it was based. Also with the annexation into the City of Pittsburgh, there was a substantial two-story addition added to the school in 1908, doubling its size. The building remained the same until substantial alterations occurred in 1936. These changes were known as the
Federal Public Works Project Docket PA 1156 due to the fact that the Pittsburgh School Board's building staff and program were funded by the federal government at this time due to the
Great Depression. The
architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
for these 1936 renovations was Marion Steen, the Pittsburgh School Board's staff architect and Assistant Superintendent of Buildings at the time. These renovations modernized the interior and significantly altered the exterior which has remained the same till this day. The last changes occurred in 1991 when the architecture firms of Akers, Erwin, Thompson, and Gasparella made extensive renovations to the interior, modernizing it. The building was nominated in 2018 to become a City Historic Landmark b
Preservation Pittsburgh
Architecture
The architecture of the Spring Hill Elementary School is most notable for how it reflects the history of public school design in
Allegheny and Pittsburgh. The alterations to the school are illustrative of the changes in ideological and architectural approaches to urban education. The first school building was designed by the City of Allegheny and was representative of typical
Victorian
Victorian or Victorians may refer to:
19th century
* Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign
** Victorian architecture
** Victorian house
** Victorian decorative arts
** Victorian fashion
** Victorian literature ...
schoolhouses of the era. The annexation into Pittsburgh shifted the school from being a symbol of the community to part of the city.
[Pittsburgh Department of City Planning. “A Community Profile of Spring Hill.” August 1974. Retrieved August 30, 2016.] The changes in the 1930s also represented an era in which the federal government was needed for improvements, and the school needed modernizing. Today the school consists of two-wings, one of which was first constructed in 1896 and the other in 1908. The wings are joined by a one-story connector and are rectangular, made of red brick and sandstone foundations.
Gallery
File:Spring Hill Elementary School 2.png, View of the Elementary School in 1917
References