German Evangelical Protestant Church - Pittsburgh, PA
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 40° 26.520 W 079° 59.835
17T E 585040 N 4477299
The German Evangelical Protestant Church, now known as the Smithfield Congregation Church, "was founded in 1782, incorporated in 1821, and is the oldest German congregation west of the Allegheny Mountains."
Waymark Code: WMKAWJ
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 03/11/2014
Views: 8
Located at 620 Smithfield St. in Pittsburgh, this church was completed in 1926.
This website (
visit link) informs us:
"The Evangelical Protestant Church was founded in 1782, incorporated in 1821, and is the oldest German congregation west of the Allegheny Mountains. The congregation is a descendant of the original German Reformed Protestant Church that received a land grant from the Penn family in 1787. The Evangelical Protestant Church is the mother church of the Voeghtly Evangelical Church (1833), First Lutheran Church (1837), German Trinity Lutheran Church (1837), St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church (East End, 1839), Birmingham Evangelical Protestant Church (1846), and Grace Reformed Church (1854).
The first church building was constructed in 1792 and was replaced successively by new buildings in 1815, 1833, and 1875-1877. The Reformed congregation merged with a German Lutheran congregation to form the German Evangelical Protestant Church in 1812, which became the Smithfield Congregational Church in 1925. The present church building was built after the congregation sold or leased its land on Sixth Avenue and the former church was demolished for construction of a commercial building. The Smithfield Congregational Church (United Church of Christ) and the Smithfield Methodist Church merged in 1968 to create the Smithfield United Church.
The Smithfield United Church is a Gothic-style building and its unusual design was by one of Pittsburgh's premiere Classical architects, Henry Hornbostel. The building, a tall, blocky structure, included a main sanctuary, a chapel, Sunday school classrooms, a social hall, a shelter, and a gymnasium. The mass of the building culminates in a square tower that is capped by an openwork aluminum spire, an early architectural use of aluminum. The Gothic ornament on the exterior is a surface treatment, limited to the exterior stone panels attached to the steel structural frame. The tall, relatively narrow sanctuary at the top of the building is focused on the eighteen-foot-diameter rose window, which was relocated from the 1875 church. The sidewalls are lined with tall stained-glass windows that depict both the life and teachings of Christ, and the history of the congregation and the city of Pittsburgh. The interior ornament, like the exterior, is surface ornament dominated by Gothic arches, with plaster fan and groin vaults in the ceiling.
Hornbostel created a steel framed structure, clad with stone to evoke a religious presence, but still fit in to the urban context. His design was a three story structure with a single tower to maintain the spirituality of the Gothic style. He strayed from the rigid laws of religious architecure and added aspects of art deco and modernism. The abstract geometries, emphasized verticals and the open web of the aluminum spire made the church an eclectic work of art. The spire was the first example of aluminum used as a large scale architectural piece."