Henry Hornbostel is an architect with his stamp all over Pittsburgh. His designs grace our skyline in buildings like the Soldiers and Sailors Museum and the Oakland City Hall. Most importantly for us, he’s the guy who designed Carnegie Mellon.
Henry “Horny” Hornbostel (yes, that was a nickname he actually went by) is one of those figures who left an indelible mark on history and who most people have never heard of. He was born in Brooklyn, graduated from Columbia University, and went on to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In his time, most American artists and architects sought their main studies abroad in France, where they could “learn from the best” and hopefully use their training to create a distinctly American style back home.
At the Ecole, he instantly became known amongst his peers for his incredible draftsmanship and skill at perspective sketching, earning the nickname “l’homme perspectif.” Once he returned to America, he put these skills to use designing beautiful buildings in the Beaux-Arts style — the same architectural style our original campus is fashioned after.
Hornbostel became strongly associated with Pittsburgh in the early 20th century. Of his 228 constructed designs, 110 of them were built here in the Steel City. Constructions of his, like the Oakland City Hall, proved incredibly influential at the time by creating skyscrapers out of buildings not commonly given such treatment.
In 1904, Hornbostel won Andrew Carnegie’s design competition for a new university atop the rolling hills of Schenley Park. I hope you can figure out which one I’m talking about. Hornbostel designed the layout of Carnegie Tech, centering it around an East-to-West axis you may know as the Mall! His buildings here include Baker, Hamerschlag and Doherty Halls, as well as the College of Fine Arts (CFA) building and Hamburg Hall (which was purchased by Carnegie Mellon in 1984).
Hornbostel loved Carnegie Tech so much that he set up the School of Architecture, becoming its first director and then dean of CFA. In fact, as dean he hired painting professor George W. Sotter to paint the murals of Pittsburgh that adorn the CFA building’s first floor.
In case you’ve gotten the idea that Hornbostel was a stuffy, humorless old artist type with a perpetual scowl, you are quite mistaken, dear reader.
Reportedly, Hornbostel was a delightfully eccentric man. He was known for his fondness for peculiar red satin string ties, his pet monkey, and driving around Pittsburgh in a convertible co-piloted by his dog.
While teaching here, he and his wife Martha founded the sadly now-extinct Beaux-Arts Ball at Carnegie Tech, which he used as an excuse to dress in ornate and absurd historical costumes. Most notably, he proudly sported a Van Dyke beard — so passionately so that, when serving as a major in the U.S. military during World War I, he insisted upon keeping it despite orders to shave it to make way for easy gas mask wearing.
Next time you stroll down the Mall, under the CFA frescoes, or up Baker’s tiled staircase, think for a moment about the funny and flamboyant man who is responsible for it all. Without him, our campus would be unrecognizable, and nowhere near as iconic as it is today. We bow with our satin string ties to you, Mr. Hornbostel.