The nineteenth-century Gothic Revival was influential in the USA and maintained momentum until the Second World War.

Nineteenth-century Gothic buildings were usually scholarly versions of European originals, like New York City’s Trinity Church (1846) and St Patrick’s Cathedral (1879/1888).

Subsequent neo-Gothic buildings in the States are more varied, grand and original, especially when their designs merged with the quintessentially American invention of the skyscraper.

I’ve been fortunate to enjoy the Woolworth Building (1913) and Riverside Church (1929) in New York City, Grace Cathedral (1924-64) in San Francisco and the Tribune Tower (1922-25) in Chicago, but the richest, most fascinating, downright peculiar example of American Gothic I know is the Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh.

This astonishing structure is a 42-storey tower containing lecture facilities, research and library areas and study and social facilities for the University of Pittsburgh.

It was the brain-child of John Gabbert Bowman (1877-1962), chancellor of the university 1921-45, who envisaged a landmark building dominating the city:  “…more than a schoolhouse; it was to be a symbol of the life that Pittsburgh through the years had wanted to live”.

He commissioned Charles Zeller Klauder (1872-1938), one of the foremost American architects of his generation who continued to develop the neo-Gothic style in the age of Art Deco.

On land given by the banker and industrialist Andrew William Mellon (1855-1937), Charles Klauder created a monumental building that fulfilled all the requisite criteria – ample space for a multiplicity of purposes, a powerful impact on the Pittsburgh townscape and a rich source of imaginative art and craftsmanship.

The most awe-inspiring space in the Cathedral is the four-storey Commons [sic] Room, 52 feet high and covering half an acre of floor-space, where students are guaranteed quiet for private study.  The Perpendicular Gothic columns and vaults are functioning masonry arches, independent of the steel frame which supports the higher storeys.

The first and third floors surrounding the Commons Room are largely given over to the Nationality Rooms that John G Bowman handed over in 1926 to representatives of the nationalities that made up Pittsburgh’s diverse communities.  Each community was responsible for the entire cost of fitting out the rooms, after which the University undertook to maintain them in perpetuity.

The English Room, for example, is decorated with materials rescued from the bombed House of Commons at the end of the Second World War.  It was dedicated in 1952, and contains portraits of Andrew Mellon and William Pitt, the Prime Minster after whom the city is named.  Separate classrooms are dedicated to Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

The Turkish Room includes a large ceramic portrait of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey, instructing his people about the Turkish alphabet introduced in 1928 in place of the Arabic script.

There are currently thirty-one Nationality Rooms, from African Heritage to Yugoslavia, of which all but two are functioning classrooms.  Most of them still have blackboards, though the Korean Room, dedicated in 2015, was the first to instal an LED screen and central speaker system.

Detailed descriptions of all the Nationality Rooms can be found at Nationality Rooms – Wikipedia.

The highest level of the tower available to the public is the Federick Honors College on the 35th and 36th floors.  The views are spectacular.

The Cathedral of Learning is freely accessible to members of the public.  I ate chicken nuggets and fries in the student refectory in the basement.  You can’t always do that at British cathedrals of learning.