Cathedral of Learning

As a life-long Pittsburgher, the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning has been in my life for as long as I can remember.  Even as a child when visiting the iconic Forbes Field or the Carnegie Museum and Library complex in the city’s Oakland neighborhood, I remember being awestruck by the magnificence of this tower.

As impressive as the structure is to view from the outside, it’s even more overwhelming when entering the gothic, vaulted Commons Area that’s populated with table and study carrels which are dwarfed by the three-story arches under which they reside.

Over the years the cathedral has played a significant role in my life and the lives of many other citizens of Pittsburgh and alumni of the university.

I met my wife over fifty years ago in a night class we took at the same time in one of the classrooms in the cathedral’s lower level.  We’ve enjoyed numerous performances at the Stephen Foster Memorial Theater which is incorporated into the cathedral’s plaza.

While attending the University of Pittsburgh I was fortunate to perform with the Heinz Chapel Choir whose home is in the sanctuary of the same name that sits on ground adjacent to the cathedral.  Over the years we’ve attended several weddings at Heinz Chapel and just last month, we attended the first weeknight, non-denominational service at the chapel hosted by Orchard Hill Church.

These memories and more came flooding back to my mind as I read an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette which discussed the celebrations around the cathedrals’ 100^th anniversary this year.

If you’d like to reminisce with me, I’ve reprinted the article below.  Enjoy!

How Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning has remained a beacon in Pittsburgh as it hits 100

by Maddie Aiken

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

September 27, 2026

The Cathedral of Learning is a two-fold symbol of family and providence for Anita Kapp Herman.

Her beloved father, carpenter Harry Kapp, was one of the workers who built the 535-foot Oakland landmark. And she met her late husband, Richard Herman, while tabling for her sorority in the Cathedral basement.

It’s a historic month for Herman and the Cathedral: Both turn a century old. Herman was born on Sept. 16, 1926. Ground broke on the Cathedral a week and a half later, on Sept. 27, 1926.

Herman, who moved with Richard to the Atlanta area shortly after their marriage in 1953 and has lived there since, enjoyed a “fabulous” centennial celebration with family and friends.

Pitt has celebrated the Cathedral throughout this month, with a cinematic light show over the weekend and a Cathy-Palooza on Sunday. The university also announced a $3 billion capital campaign on Friday.

“One hundred years ago, Pitt broke ground on an idea,” university Chancellor Joan Gabel said in a statement. “This idea that has not only shaped 42 floors of imagination and inspiration, but also generations of legacy and learning tied to a spirit of possibility that has defined Pitt for nearly a quarter-millennium.”

History of the Cathedral

Harry Kapp was one of more than 1,000 workers who built the Cathedral between its groundbreaking in 1926, its dedication in 1937 and its full completion in the 1940s.

The structure — which at the time was the tallest academic building in the world and remains the tallest in the Western Hemisphere — was the brainchild of then-Chancellor John G. Bowman. A poet by trade, Bowman’s vision for the tower was that it would be “a symbol of the life that Pittsburgh through the years had wanted to live,” he later wrote.

Bowman commissioned the building in 1921 and worked on its design with architect Charles Z. Klauder. Ambitions for the skyscraper were lofty: Its 52 planned stories would house the entire university, aside from its medical and dental schools. Initial plans would have made it the tallest building in Pittsburgh and third tallest in the country.

That modern feat would be juxtaposed by its Gothic design and a massive Commons Room reminiscent of a 15th-century cathedral, both nods to the medieval origins of universities.

“It was controversial, because it was completely original: a university with a skyscraper,” said Drew Armstrong, Pitt’s director of architectural studies.

Costs were projected at $10 million, an “immense amount of money” in the 1920s, Armstrong said. The building was eventually downscaled to 42 stories. After its dedication in 1937, it was the second-tallest building in the city after the Gulf Tower.

At the time of the Cathedral’s construction, Oakland was becoming a hub of arts, education, medicine and entertainment: Both Pitt and Carnegie Tech were enjoying growing enrollments. The Pittsburgh Pirates had won two World Series at Forbes Field, and Pitt Stadium had welcomed its first fans in 1925. Families spent time at Schenley Park, and Pittsburghers frequented the Carnegie Museum of Art and Carnegie Music Hall. Magee Hospital had opened in 1911, Children’s opened in 1926, and Presbyterian would move to the neighborhood from the North Side in the 1930s.The Heinz family was mulling the idea for what would become Heinz Memorial Chapel; ground broke on that building in 1933.

The Cathedral wasn’t seen as just part of Pitt, but as an integral part of the greater Pittsburgh community. It relied on that community for its existence: It was funded by the public. Fundraising was its “big risk,” Armstrong said.

“I don't think there's another case of a tall office building that was built with fundraising,” he said.

Big donations came from the Mellon family, who bought the $1.5 million site for the university, paid for the Commons Room and donated to all the original Nationality Rooms. Westinghouse Electrical Corp. donated $300,000 worth of equipment to the project, including the building’s elevators.

But small donations built the tower, too. About 97,000 children gave a dime each to the project through a "Buy a Brick for Pitt" campaign; they got certificates documenting their contributions.

The building’s steel frame was produced locally by Jones and Laughlin Steel Corp. and Carnegie Steel Co. Its limestone was shipped by train from the state of Indiana.

Construction wasn’t without its challenges. In 1931, with the Great Depression crushing the nation’s economy, the university ran out of money and building halted. It restarted in 1933 after Pitt received funding through the New Deal. A year later, in 1934, two workers died after falling from the third floor.

The building was dedicated in 1937, for Pitt’s 150th anniversary. Work on its interior continued into the 1940s.

The building is outstanding, Armstrong said, for its height, architectural design, surrounding green space, integration in the neighborhood and fortuitous alignment with Forbes Avenue.

The community was “blown away” by the gothic skyscraper, he said, and it became Oakland’s focal point built with Steel City labor, steel and financial support.

Eighteen classrooms depicted the heritage of those Pittsburghers. The Cathedral’s Nationality Rooms, part of Bowman’s original vision for the building, represent the nationalities and ethnicities of different settler and immigrant groups that made up Pittsburgh. There are now 31 such classrooms.  

“It was an extraordinary, epic undertaking,” Armstrong said. ‘It’s their building’

For Herman and thousands of other Pittsburghers, the building represents 100 years of memories.

The Cathedral has been a backdrop to countless graduation photos, served as a picturesque spot for marriage proposals, welcomed diplomatic leaders from across the globe, and acted as a historic front seat to the 1960 World Series. 

“People feel it’s their building,” Armstrong said. “It belongs to them, the people of the city of Pittsburgh and the surrounding region.”

Herman’s connection is very personal.  Her father, the son of German immigrants, grew up “quite poor,” she said. He had to wear his mother’s shoes to elementary school because he didn’t have a pair himself.

But he showed promise in carpentry and built a life for himself and his family working on the Cathedral of Learning and other homes and buildings in the city.

Harry Kapp was scrupulously honest and always generous, his daughter remembers.

“He never refused anybody anything if they were needy because he remembered being poor,” she said. 

He excelled in his craft, said Herman, who was her parents’ sole daughter among five brothers. “He was very meticulous.”

For high school, Herman attended since-closed St. Raphael’s Catholic High School for Girls in Morningside. She went to Pitt on a partial scholarship to study journalism.

It was in the Cathedral basement eight decades ago that a handsome student came over and struck up a conversation with her, Herman said. It was love at first sight.

“I look at this tall, handsome, straight-as-an-arrow guy who looked like a man among boys,” Herman recalled on meeting Richard. “I thought, ‘I am not passing this one up.’”

Richard, a graduate of Taylor Allderdice High School, had completed a tour in the U.S. Navy during World War II before he attended Pitt to study political science.

Herman graduated in 1949, Richard, in 1950, and the couple married in 1953. After their marriage, Richard returned to the Navy. Eventually, the family moved to the Atlanta area, where Richard worked as a salesman.

Herman raised the couple’s six children and then pursued a real estate career. 

“My dad had been a builder, and I knew all about real estate, and so it was natural for me,” she said. She is a now grandmother to 25 and great-grandmother to five.  Richard died in 2015 at 87.

Reflecting on her life, Herman said she’s been very fortunate.  “I used to think it was luck. It wasn’t luck. It was providence,” she said. “I always back everything up to God.”