Congress Tours

Delegates were invited to come early and stay late to enjoy Pittsburgh's many cultural attractions. The following tours were available to delegates free of charge and organized by the Local Arrangements Committee.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater

Image courtesy of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy
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Image courtesy of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy

Delegates boarded a bus at the Westin Hotel for an afternoon tour of the house voted the "best all-time work of American architecture" by The American Institute of Architects. Fallingwater, a National Historic Landmark, is located in the Laurel Highlands where the delegates experienced the spectacular fall foliage that draws visitors from all over the world.
 

The Carnegie International

Image courtesy of Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh
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Image courtesy of Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh

Initiated in 1896 by Andrew Carnegie one year after the Venice Biennale, the Carnegie International is the longest-running international survey of contemporary art at any museum. The 2013 Carnegie International, opened on October 5, 2013, and brought 35 artists from 19 countries. Delegates were taken by bus to the Carnegie Museum of Art and were given a private tour by the curators of the exhibition, followed by a discussion of contemporary art and placemaking in cities.
 

The Mattress Factory and Andy Warhol Museum

Images courtesy of Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh
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Images courtesy of Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh

The Central North Side is a neighborhood in transition that captures the excitement of art-based place making in action. A bus took delegates to The Mattress Factory for a private tour of the first museum dedicated entirely to installation art that began life as a mattress factory. Delegates then walked through the historic Mexican War Streets area and Allegheny Commons, the oldest public park in Pittsburgh. The afternoon concluded with a private tour of the Andy Warhol Museum, the largest museum in the world dedicated to a single artist, native Pittsburgher Andy Warhol.
 

August Wilson's Pittsburgh

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August Wilson was the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and author whose ten plays, collectively known as The Pittsburgh Cycle, are considered to be the most significant depiction of African American life in the twentieth century. The New York Times wrote upon his death in 2005, that “… Mr. Wilson depicted the struggles of black Americans with uncommon lyrical richness, theatrical density and emotional heft, in plays that gave vivid voices to people on the frayed margins of life: cabdrivers and maids, garbagemen and side men and petty criminals.” Nine of his plays are set in the Hill District neighborhood of Pittsburgh. On this bus and walking tour, delegates viewed the Hill District as August Wilson experienced it during his childhood and coming of age in Pittsburgh.
 

Oakland: The City Beautiful: Eds to Meds

Image courtesy of Visit Pittsburgh
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Image courtesy of Visit Pittsburgh

The Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh is home to the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, Carlow University, UPMC medical complex, the Carnegie Library and Museums, and the Phipps Conservatory. This tour focused on the Oakland neighborhood as a place of plans and change, encompassing stakeholders and community activists across the breadth of this “eds and meds” neighborhood. Despite its prominence as the City Beautiful, the Oakland neighborhood also showed strains of failed American urban policy. The bus and walking tour began with a brief review of public housing in Pittsburgh and the racial implications of these policies over time, beginning with the redevelopment of Terrace Village into Oak Hill, a HOPE VI mixed income housing development. The tour continued through the institutional side of Oakland and concluded at the opening reception at Carnegie Mellon University, after visiting Schenley Plaza, the vibrant new pubic park in the heart of Oakland, and Phipps Conservatory, a leader in green building.
 

Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob

Images courtesy of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy
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Images courtesy of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy

Delegates boarded a bus at the Westin Hotel for a tour of the house voted the "best all-time work of American architecture" by the American Institute of Architects. Fallingwater, a National Historic Landmark, is located in the Laurel Highlands where delegates experienced the spectacular fall foliage that draws visitors from all over the world. Nearby Fallingwater is Kentuck Knob, where delegates toured a one-story Usonian house designed by Wright on a hexagonal model, a signature design. Kentuck Knob was purchased by Lord Peter Palumbo in 1986 and opened to the public.

Strip District Stroll: Ethnic Foods and Urban Living

Image courtesy of Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation
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Image courtesy of Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation

Delegates boarded a Molly's Trolley and traveled to Pittsburgh's Strip District, a lively urban marketplace of family-owned ethnic stores, fish and produce merchants, antique galleries, specialty shops, and more. Participants shopped and wandered, and toured the historic St. Stanislas Church, Pittsburgh Opera headquarters (located in the former Westinghouse Air Brake Company building), and the Armstrong Cork Factory, now housing 297 loft apartments. In addition, participants laerned about plans for a new mixed-use riverfront development.