A collection of images celebrating the extravagant and historic mansions of Pittsburgh, PA. In the 19th century, the positioning of Pittsburgh as a major manufacturing center and the subsequent rise of the area's steel industry created a wave of prosperity that prompted the beneficiaries of that wealth to construct extravagant residences. Wealthy enclaves sprang up in the city's East End, across the river in neighboring Allegheny City, and into the countryside. Pittsburgh's Mansions explores the stately homes of the area's prominent residents from the 1830s through the 1920s. Businessmen such as H.J. Heinz, Henry Clay Frick, and members of the Mellon family commissioned elaborate homes from the preeminent architects of their day. Firms such as Alden & Harlow, Janssen & Abbott, and Rutan & Russell left their marks on the city's landscape, often contributing iconic public buildings as well as expansive private homes. Though many of the residences have since been lost, Pittsburgh's Mansions offers a look back at the peak of the city's prominence.

Thorsten Brinkmann (*1971 in Herne) happens on the ingredients for his sculptures, photographs, and site-specific installations at dumps, materials that have been abandoned by civilization. Commonplace and bizarre materials are piled up to form pedestals and sculptures, or they are transformed into cabinets of wonders. The artist even uses his own body as an objet trouvé. For his photo series Portraits of a Serial Collector Brinkmann puts on found articles of clothing and stages himself in a setting that is likewise made of found objects. He is a juggler who places equal value on mundane things and introduces them to art in the spirit of Marcel Duchamp. This richly illustrated volume presents the first complete overview of Thorsten Brinkmann's oeuvre, an artist whose combinations of objects playfully make us conscious of the interface between the familiar and the unexpected, between the imaginable and the never-before-imagined.

With stirring narrative and beautiful photography, Pittsburgh Prays takes us on a journey to the massive cathedrals and private chapels, synagogues, mosques and temples of Greater Pittsburgh. The book highlights not only sacred places, and piety, but also the love that created and maintains these houses of worships of all faiths, foci of communities and neighborhoods. More than bricks and mortar, each building represents the lexicon of Pittsburgh history - and generations dedicated to the greater good.

Over the years, their commissions included scores of city and country residences for the elite of both regions as well as major institutional and business buildings such as those at Harvard and Radcliffe, the Cambridge City Hall, and Pittsburgh's Duquesne Club and Carnegie Institute.

Kaufmann's Department Store was a force in Pittsburgh retail from its humble beginnings in 1871 until its merger with Federated Department Stores in 2006. The "Big Store" downtown was a landmark shopping emporium with 12 floors of everything from cosmetics and groceries to wedding gowns and lawn mowers. Under the leadership of Edgar J. Kaufmann and his wife, Liliane, the store became a forum for exhibitions of art, cutting-edge technology, and Parisian haute couture. Generations of Pittsburghers hold fond memories of meeting friends and family under the famous Kaufmann's clock to lunch at the Tic Toc Restaurant, pick up cookies at the Arcade Bakery, or peer into the store's enchanting Christmas window displays each December.