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First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh is located in Downtown Pittsburgh and was built in 1905 in the English Gothic style. The architect is Theophilus Parsons Chandler and the contractors were Arthur H. Williams' Sons of Philadelphia. One of its most distinctive features is the 26ft tall Tiffany windows that make up 13 of the 14 large windows in the nave and the 30ft, solid oak doors behind the altar weighing two tons each (that I was allowed to open!). The church has 253 stained glass windows total. Constructing the church today would cost about $12,236,914. The church exterior is sandstone, rough stone for the interior finish and a block stone floor. Most of the wood is quartered oak. Two wooden beams support the arches in the sanctuary, each 2ft thick and made from two 150ft tress from Oregon.
As a Louis Comfort Tiffany fan, I have to share some information about these windows because they are the reason I became so interested in Tiffany Studio's work. Although they look like two separate windows, they are 26ft tall and 7.5ft wide. The only parts of Tiffany Studios windows that are painted are the faces, hands, and feet. The rest is opalescent hand made Favrile glass. The lower half of the window contain earthly scenes mostly from the first four gospels of the New Testament (ground), and the upper half are scenes from heaven (sky). The large choir loft window was designed by William Willet. The Senior Pastor at the time was not a fan of the style, so he had it covered with canvases. When the organ was installed, the window was completely covered from the inside of the church.
This church is very important to me. I was looking for places to shoot a cosplay, and thought the character would suit this setting. I did the shoot, and a while later I decided to look into the building. I had never been interested in or visited a gothic church before, but I instantly fell in love after learning more. Later that year, I was in Pittsburgh for two months and started photography as a result of visiting First Presbyterian. I was taking photos of multiple Gothic buildings a day.
