Heinz Memorial Chapel at the University of Pittsburgh is probably the most-loved church building in our city.
It is widely familiar. Many thousands of us have attended memorable weddings, concerts and services there since it was dedicated 75 years ago, certainly a factor in its popularity.
And it also is a Gothic-inspired church of such quality design and proportions that it creates in nearly every visitor a hushed awe upon entering it. You have the certainty that you are entering a space dedicated to events that are sacred, and the rest of the world falls instantly away.
Its four 73-foot-high, stained-glass windows at the transept are among the tallest such stained-glass windows in the world — creating a legitimate tourist attraction as well as an astonishing accompaniment to any event that goes on there.
The 100-foot-high, Gothic vaulting and four huge pillars that you encounter at the center of the church decisively express the importance of the place, something the stillness of the church allows you to contemplate. And the darkness of the chapel's heights — the nave is mostly lit just by the stained-glass windows and well-baffled down-lights — emphasizes the haunting mystery of a spiritual space.
The Heinz Chapel was designed by Charles Z. Klauder, who also designed the Cathedral of Learning and the Stephen Foster Memorial, which share the same grassy campus superblock at the center of Oakland. Klauder of Philadelphia was one of the best-known Gothicists and academic specialists of his day, having contributed famously to such pictorial campuses as those of Princeton and Duke. He lived from 1872 to 1938, and died just a few weeks before the chapel's dedication.
The chapel wears its 75 years well, and is little changed from what it was the day it was opened, Nov. 20, 1938. It's a place of both grandeur and intimacy, designed with architectural effects that show both simplicity and intricacy.
Klauder based the Heinz Chapel on French Gothic designs of the late 13th and 14th centuries. Those were the days when European cities, influenced mainly by their prosperous merchants, competed to see who could build the highest and best cathedrals (much like American cities compete today to see who can build the most luxurious sports stadiums, alas). As a result, Gothic architecture came to be known for its height, and virtually all the elements of Heinz Chapel emphasize verticality. The tip of its spire — called the fleche — is some 250 feet above the ground.
The chapel's sure-handed massing — the way its key elements are skillfully grouped together — is somewhat reminiscent of Mont Saint-Michel, that famous mounded-up little island just off the coast of Normandy that is accentuated by the central monastery church tower at its top.
But Heinz Chapel, for all its height, is still a relatively small church. And Klauder was well aware of the stunning effect of great height on a small church. If you look carefully, you'll notice that every approach to Heinz Chapel, whether from the street or from the campus itself, is oblique. There is no head-on path to the entrance, so you are always viewing the chapel's great height in comparison to its relatively short length. You are always seeing it, in effect, in perspective, with the tower at the center of the building.
A short set of steps wrap around the entrance and lead you to an embracing entrance that funnels you into a small, low-ceilinged narthex (the entrance vestibule). It's not until you then step through the doors into the nave that you begin to experience the interior drama of the space. This drama is enhanced if you happen to walk down one of the side aisles, which, like the narthex, have a low vaults for the ceiling and are very narrow — almost residential in scale. To step out from one of the side aisles into the high church nave is a striking experience.
The chancel space for the altar, pulpit and choir also is relatively small and set close to the congregants. But the chancel gets its own drama from elaborately carved, dark-oak woodwork on three sides, fittingly medieval in style.
Despite its height and despite the intricacy of its many stone and wood carvings, the chapel, as befits a small church, still has a certain simplicity that comes mainly from its use of a very limited choice of basic materials and colors. All the stonework is the same gray, Indiana limestone, inside and out, while all the extensive woodwork inside is dark oak. The famous stained-glass windows are overwhelmingly rendered predominantly in blues and reds, with white and gold for accents and other colors only as necessary, and then subordinated at that.
Pittsburgh is a city of great churches — but Heinz Memorial Chapel has always stood out among them, not just because of its architectural quality, but because of its centrality at the heart of the university and its popularity, as well.
John Conti is a former news reporter who has written extensively over the years about architecture, planning and historic-preservation issues.
