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Gateway Center from Ninth Street Bridge by Brian Shure
Photo CreditCarol M. Highsmith Photography
Gateway Center from Ninth Street Bridge
Photo CreditCarol M. Highsmith Photography

Gateway Center from Ninth Street Bridge

Artist
Year2005
Classification painting
Medium oil on linen
Dimensions6 x 18 ft. (182.9 x 548.6 cm)
Credits Commissioned through the Art in Architecture Program
Fine Arts Collection
U.S. General Services Administration
Location

  • For the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Brian Shure painted three large-scale murals, each of which is installed in one of the building’s courtrooms behind the judge’s bench. Gateway Center from Ninth Street Bridge, Fourth and Market; PPG Center and South Side; East Carson and Twelfth all depict well-known Pittsburgh scenes and illustrate the ways in which the old and the new have been integrated into the urban landscape of the city.


    Gateway Center from Ninth Street Bridge depicts sections of Pittsburgh’s Three Sisters Bridges in the immediate foreground, along with a portion of the downtown skyline in the background. The historic Fulton Building at the left, built in 1907, is identified by its prominent archway, a form repeated in the arched tower of the Seventh Street suspension bridge in the foreground. To the right of the Fulton Building stands the Gateway Center, a building complex typical of mid-twentieth-century urban architecture and constructed during the first city-wide revitalization project in the 1950s.


    Due to the region’s varied topography and the city’s location at the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio Rivers, the creation of an extensive network of bridges was necessary for the city’s success as an industrial metropolis. Citizens of Pittsburgh and scholars alike have argued over the years as to how many bridges are located in the city. The number has ranged from 30 to 2000, depending on size and if one includes the bridges in Allegheny County as well. In his book entitled The Bridges of Pittsburgh, author Bob Regan identifies the number at 446 bridges, which surpasses even the city of Venice at 443. The bridges, painted in either of the city’s official colors of yellow or black, create a striking panorama as they traverse the mighty rivers and are juxtaposed against the city’s historically varied skyline. The identity of Pittsburgh as the “City of Bridges” is certainly demonstrated by Shure’s painting Gateway Center from Ninth Street Bridge.