George Hubbard Clapp Hall is a contributing property to the Schenley Farms National Historic District

on the campus of the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...

in the Oakland section of

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

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, ...

. The six-story Gothic Revival structure, designed by Trautwein & Howard, was completed in 1956 and serves as the primary facility of the University of Pittsburgh Department of Biological Sciences. It contains laboratories, classrooms, a greenhouse, and an amphitheater-style lecture hall with 404 seats.

Architecture

Clapp Hall was designed by Trautwein & Howard, a successor to architectural firm of Charles Klauder who designed the university's gothic

Cathedral of Learning The Cathedral of Learning is a 42-story skyscraper that serves as the centerpiece of the University of Pittsburgh's (Pitt) main campus in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Standing at , the 42-story Late Gothic Revival Cat ...

, Stephen Foster Memorial, and

Heinz Memorial Chapel Heinz Memorial Chapel is a Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation Historic Landmark and a contributing property to the Schenley Farms National Historic District on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Uni ...

. Clapp Hall's exterior and interior spaces have been described as a mix of Collegiate Gothic and Art Deco. The building features a diagonally-positioned entrance that creates a direct axis with the Cathedral of Learning which is framed in Clapp Hall's stone portal entryway. The building is clad in textured

Indiana limestone Indiana limestone — also known as Bedford limestone in the building trade — has long been an economically important building material, particularly for monumental public structures. Indiana limestone is a more common term for Salem Limestone, ...

to match the stone used on the Cathedral of Learning. The building's use of aluminum windows has been suggested to be a quiet homage to the work of aluminum magnate George Hubbard Clapp, the building's namesake. The lobby of Clapp Hall is streamlined Art Deco in character, with

terrazzo Terrazzo is a composite material, poured in place or precast, which is used for floor and wall treatments. It consists of chips of marble, quartz, granite, glass, or other suitable material, poured with a cementitious binder (for chemical bind ...

flooring and stainless steel doors, and is thus more stylistically modern than its exterior which is meant to reflect the Cathedral of Learning. It has been suggested that the lobby reveals a struggle in the design process to find a balance between the traditional gothic and more contemporary design elements.

History

Original plans slated Clapp Hall to be built adjacent to the

facing the Masonic Temple, on the south side of Fifth Avenue, between the Cathedral and

. Concerns over adding more buildings to the

lawn and impinging on the lawn's rare open space prompted a change to its current site across Fifth Avenue and effectively ended above-ground development of the Cathedral lawn space. The plot of land that Clapp Hall was constructed on was purchased for $675,000 ($ million today) as a gift for the university by the A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust. Ground was broken for Clapp Hall in 1954 and the building was completed in 1956. The six-story building cost $2.5 million ($ million today) and it was initially used only for freshman chemistry, although other sciences soon moved into the building. it is conjoined with Langley and Crawford Halls, which were added in later stages, and forms the three-building Clapp/Langley/Crawford Complex. The triangular courtyard at the southwest entry to Clapp Hall, facing the Cathedral of Learning, was modified in 2004 to accommodate trees and benches. The building is named for George Hubbard Clapp (1858–1949), an alumnus (class of 1877) and president of Pitt's Board of Trustees for more than 40 years. Clapp was one of five responsible for the first commercial production of

aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It ha ...

and was a founder of the

Aluminum Company of America Alcoa Corporation (an acronym for Aluminum Company of America) is a Pittsburgh-based industrial corporation. It is the world's eighth-largest producer of aluminum. Alcoa conducts operations in 10 countries. Alcoa is a major producer of primary ...

Use

The six-story structure contains laboratories, classrooms, and an amphitheater-style lecture hall with 404 seats. A greenhouse, used mostly for teaching, is located on the fourth floor of Clapp Hall. Clapp Hall originally housed Pitt's Departments of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Metallurgy, and Chemical Engineerin

Today the Department of Biological Sciences occupies the building.

References

External links

Clapp Hall on Pitt's virtual Campus TourDepartment of Biological Sciences
{{University of Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh academic buildings Gothic Revival architecture in Pennsylvania University and college buildings completed in 1956 Historic district contributing properties in Pennsylvania National Register of Historic Places in Pittsburgh 1956 establishments in Pennsylvania