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Architect: Henry Hornbostel This congregation is the descendant of the original German Reformed Protestant church that received a land grant from the Penn family in 1787. The first church building was constructed in 1792, and was replaced successively by new buildings in 1815, 1833, and 1875-77. The Reformed congregation merged with a German Lutheran congregation to form the German Evangelical Protestant Church in 1812. This church united with the Smithfield Congregational Church in 1925. The present church building was built after the congregation sold or leased its land on Sixth Avenue, and the former church on the corner was demolished to make way for a commercial building. The Smithfield Congregational Church (United Church of Christ) and the Smithfield Methodist Church joined in 1968 to create the Smithfield United Church. This Gothic-style building was an unusual design by one of Pittsburgh's premiere Classical architects. Its constricted site and a program that included, besides the main sanctuary, a chapel, Sunday school classrooms, a social hall, a shelter, and a gymnasium, led to the design of a tall, blocky structure. The mass of the building culminates in a square tower that is capped by an openwork aluminum spire, an early architectural use of aluminum. The Gothic ornament on the exterior is a surface treatment, limited to the exterior stone panels attached to the steel structural frame. The tall, relatively narrow sanctuary at the top of the building is focused on the eighteen-foot-diameter rose window, which was relocated from the 1875 church. The side walls are lined with tall stained-glass windows that depict both the life and teachings of Christ, and the history of this congregation and of the city of Pittsburgh. The interior ornament, like the exterior, is surface ornament dominated by Gothic arches, with plaster fan and groin vaults in the ceiling.
