Preservation Opportunities & Awards

Thursday, February 24
6:00 pm to 7:30 pm
Fee: $7.50

This tour will be conducted via Zoom Conference. Click here to purchase a ticket to RSVP. Disregard the QR code in the confirmation email. You will receive an e-mail with a link to the Zoom event on February 24. Please log in at 5:45 p.m. to allow us enough time to let you into the tour.

When Edwin Drake invented a device in 1859 to efficiently extract oil from the earth in Titusville, PA, the flood of oil money spurred a building boom on Pittsburgh’s Fourth Avenue. By the late 19^th century, the street became known as “Pittsburgh’s Wall Street” for its concentration of buildings that served the financial and investment industries.

From a Greek Revival building of 1836 to a majestic quartet of early-20th-century skyscrapers, the Fourth Avenue Historic District includes distinguished structures designed by more than a dozen eminent Pittsburgh architects. In addition to exploring the history of these buildings, the tour also will reveal how they are being re-purposed for contemporary uses to sustain this narrow but mightily impressive street.

Thursday, February 10
6:00 pm to 7:30 pm
Fee: $7.50

This tour will be conducted via Zoom Conference. Click here to purchase a ticket. Disregard the QR code in the confirmation email. You will receive an e-mail with a link to the Zoom event on February 10. Please log in at 5:45 p.m. to allow us enough time to let you into the tour.

Ever since surveyor George Woods laid out the plan of streets of Pittsburgh in 1784, Market Square has occupied an important place Downtown—geographically, economically, and culturally. In this area where historic architecture meets recent construction, we will see how PHLF’s work has helped to revive a Downtown core that was once threatened by extensive demolition.

The tour includes residential, commercial, corporate, and hotel buildings, several of which the U.S. Green Building Council has awarded its highest certifications for environmental sustainability. Together, the sites on the tour demonstrate how the combination of historic preservation and thoughtful new development can create a livable urban environment.

Thursday, May 20
6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Fee: $5.00

This lecture will be held via Zoom Conference. Click here to purchase a ticket and RSVP.

(You will receive an e-mail with a link to Zoom at on the day of the lecture. Don’t see the e-mail? Please be sure to check your spam or junk folders. Log in at 5:45 pm to allow us enough time to let you in to the lecture.)

The story of the public realm is not just of streets and sidewalks and parks. It is also about the buildings that border public space, from shops and offices to homes and restaurants. Before air conditioning and the rise of the automobile, the structures that lined public spaces opened to the street in multiple ways, from covered second-story porches so familiar to many Pittsburgh neighborhoods to the fronts of workshops and wide-doored storefronts.

As we reopen our business districts and neighborhoods, yet at the same time design for a new normal, the places where the private realm opens up to the public are more important than ever. They have been and may continue to be seen as a kind of “safer” space for social interaction and exchange. The practice of earlier generations can contribute to designing future urbanism that opens up buildings to the public realm in new and historic ways, from industrial legacy structures to neighborhood main streets and beyond.

About the presenter: Ray Gastil is the Director of the Remaking Cities Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, where he holds the David Lewis/Heinz Endowments Directorship of Urban Design and Regional Engagement. A former Director of Planning for the City of Pittsburgh, Gastil led neighborhood planning, resilient community, affordable housing, waterfront, preservation, and mobility initiatives. He previously served as a director in the planning departments of Seattle and New York City and was also a founding director of the Van Alen Institute.

Tuesday, May 18
6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Fee: $5.00

This lecture will be held via Zoom Conference. Click here to purchase a ticket and RSVP.

(You will receive an e-mail with a link to Zoom at on the day of the lecture. Don’t see the e-mail? Please be sure to check your spam or junk folders. Log in at 5:45 pm to allow us enough time to let you in to the lecture.)

The Heinz Memorial Chapel is one of the iconic landmarks on the grounds of the University of Pittsburgh campus in Oakland. It is celebrated as much for its location, beauty, and history. Constructed between 1933 and 1938, the chapel was built to honor the memory of the mother of H.J. Heinz an American entrepreneur. In this lecture, Frank Kurtik will share insights into the history, design, and architecture of the Gothic building designed by Philadelphia architect Charles Klauder.

About the presenter: Frank J. Kurtik is a long-time researcher, writer, and lecturer on the history of Western Pennsylvania. A former Research Fellow with the Heinz Family Foundation in Washington D.C., he currently works at the University of Pittsburgh where he serves on the staff of the staff Heinz Memorial Chapel, for which he is a docent and an event coordinator. Frank’s articles have appeared in many publications including the Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, Carnegie Magazine, and Western Pennsylvania History. He has lectured on topics ranging from Western Pennsylvania iron furnaces to H. J. Heinz’s role in the Sunday School movement to Monongahela rye whiskey.

Thursday, May 13
6:00 pm to 7:30 pm
Fee: $7.50

This live virtual tour will be held via Zoom Conference. Click here to purchase a ticket and RSVP.

(You will receive an e-mail with a link to Zoom at on the day of the tour. Don’t see the e-mail? Please be sure to check your spam or junk folders. Log in at 5:45 pm to allow us enough time to let you in to the tour.)

Join Tracy Myers and Sarah Greenwald co-directors of education, on a virtual tour of the preservation efforts that helped revitalize the Market Square area and Point Park University campus over the last fifteen years. In this area where the historic architecture meets ground-up construction, we will see how a full range of preservation strategies helped to create a vibrant, dynamic Downtown core.

This tour will focus on our organization’s role in helping defeat a 1990s proposal to gut the Fifth-and-Forbes corridor and take deep dives into our ongoing efforts in and near Market Square and on Wood Street.

Thurssday, April 22
6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Fee: $5

This live virtual tour will be held via Zoom Conference. Click here to purchase a ticket and RSVP.

(You will receive an e-mail with a link to Zoom at 5:00 pm on the day of the lecture. Don’t see the e-mail? Please be sure to check your spam or junk folders. Log-in 15 minutes before the lecture’s scheduled start to ensure that it begins on time.)

Virgil Cantini was an artist and sculptor best known for creating large works of public art in Pittsburgh in the middle part of the 20th Century. He aimed to make art free and accessible to all, as well as long-lasting, but the changing priorities in a dynamic city have caused many of his works to be relocated.

Holden Slattery interviewed Cantini for The Pitt News, and Cantini made such an impression on him that he chose to continue researching and writing about him more than a decade later. While working on a recently published essay about Cantini, Slattery learned much more about Cantini and the challenges to maintaining and preserving public art, as well as the advocates working to preserve it. In this lecture, Holden will share some of his findings in his more than a decade-long interest in Cantini and his work.