How to Enjoy an Artsy Weekend in Pittsburgh

If you’ve never been to Pittsburgh, you may be forgiven if your mental image of the city includes a gray urban landscape full of soot-belching smokestacks. But seeing the Three Sisters, a trio of bright yellow bridges that arc across the Allegheny River, would belie that notion. Over the past few decades, Pittsburgh has emerged from its post-industrial haze, and today the city sparkles with a fresh, creative spirit.

That renaissance began in the early 1980s with the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust—a group of visionaries who believed a vibrant art scene would lend patina to the city’s gritty, rust-belt reputation. The trust began buying up decaying theaters and seedy shops downtown and transforming them into performance venues. That once-blighted neighborhood is now a thriving arts district—one that rivals the country’s most prolific cultural hubs.

“Pittsburgh has a lot more art per capita than other cities of the same size,” says Kristen Wishon, senior director of external affairs for the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council. “That’s part of what makes Pittsburgh what it is. There are always so many interesting things going on.”

To help steer people in the right direction, the Arts Council recently unveiled 4 neighborhood arts maps that highlight more than 140 art-centric locations throughout the city.

Here are 3 ways to experience Steel City’s art and culture.

1. Museums

Pittsburgh’s museums and galleries showcase everything from the visual arts to science and technology, natural history, craft and design, sports, and all manner of offbeat ephemera.

Explore the career of native son Andy Warhol at his namesake museum, housed within 7-story 1911 building. Photo courtesy Visit Pittsburgh

Explore the career of native son Andy Warhol at his namesake museum, housed within a 7-story 1911 building. Photo courtesy Visit Pittsburgh

Start your tour right across the Allegheny River from downtown on Pittsburgh’s North Side. Once home to artistic luminaries like Mary Cassatt, Martha Graham, and Gertrude Stein, the area has become one of the city’s most vibrant enclaves, the star of which is The Andy Warhol Museum. Inside, you’ll find the foremost collection of artworks created by the Pittsburgh-born pop artist, including his whimsical, circa-1950s illustrations for the I. Miller Shoe Company, his iconic soup cans, and numerous celebrity portraits.

Then, walk to the Mattress Factory, a fascinating world of contemporary art and room-size interactive exhibitions housed in a former mattress warehouse. Highlights include site-specific installations like Yayoi Kusama’s Repetitive Vision, James Turrell’s Catso, Red, and Lera Lerner’s Instability, Scattering, Wandering, Success.

Science lovers will want to encounter Pittsburgh’s brand-new Moonshot Museum, which opened in October 2022 with the mission of inspiring young people to join the global space industry. Visitors can watch the construction of lunar landers and rovers, step into a prototype lunar habitat, learn about the future of space exploration in the Moonshot Theater, and talk with industry engineers about some of the challenges they’re working to overcome.

Nearby, continue your trip around the galaxy at the Carnegie Science Center, which recently unveiled “Mars: The Next Giant Leap.” The new exhibition gallery offers an immersive journey into the future of life on the red planet.

Beyond being a gallery, Contemporary Craft offers workshops for aspiring artists. Photo by Kahmeela Adams

For a hands-on experience, head to Contemporary Craft in the city’s hip Upper Lawrenceville neighborhood. Dedicated to the history and heritage of creating art using traditional materials—ceramic, fiber, glass, metal, and wood—this longtime cultural organization blends art exhibitions with workshops and public education. Be sure to stop in the museum store, which features the work of more than 150 artisans from around the country.

In nearby Bloomfield, the Pittsburgh Glass Center features a similar gallery-meets-studio concept, with live glass-blowing demonstrations, rotating glass art exhibitions, and a variety of glassmaking classes.

2. Architecture

To enjoy Pittsburgh’s architectural heritage, just look up. Buildings of almost every imaginable style—from art deco and Bauhaus to industrial, Gothic, and green—can be seen all across Steel City.

The 1916 Omni William Penn Hotel is one of several distinguished buildings in Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle. Photo by Jin Wu

You’ll find a trove of architectural gems downtown. Known as the Golden Triangle, this wedge of land framed by the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers contains several majestic structures. A stroll through the neighborhood leads to Henry Hobson Richardson’s Romanesque-Revival Allegheny County Courthouse, Daniel Burnham’s Greek Classical Frick Building, and the 1916 Omni William Penn Hotel, which features a stunning blend of neoclassical and art deco design. To help you locate these and other sites, the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation has created a series of 6 self-guided walking tours to augment the guided tours they offer between May and October.

Art and architecture intersect across town at The Frick Pittsburgh, a cluster of museums and historic buildings in the Point Breeze neighborhood. The focal point is Clayton, the beautifully restored Gilded Age mansion of Henry Clay Frick. Docent-led tours of the home paint a picture of both the Frick family and 19th-century Pittsburgh. Afterward, spend some time perusing the Renaissance-style Frick Art Museum, which holds the fine and decorative artworks collected by Frick and his daughter Helen Clay Frick.

Completed in 1938, the Heinz Memorial Chapel welcomes visitors Monday through Thursday. Photo courtesy Visit Pittsburgh

In Oakland, the University of Pittsburgh and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh host some of the city’s most striking landmarks. Start with a visit to Pitt’s Heinz Memorial Chapel before walking across the lawn to the Cathedral of Learning. The Gothic Revival skyscraper houses the university’s Nationality Rooms—a collection of 31 classrooms designed to celebrate the cultural heritages of the many ethnic groups that helped build Pittsburgh.

Nearby, the Carnegie Museums house several lavish spaces, including the Music Hall, the Hall of Architecture, and the Grand Staircase—the architectural centerpiece of the Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA). Completed in 1895, CMOA itself is not to be missed. The museum features a collection of more than 34,000 works from the 19th century to the present, and hosts Carnegie International, a world-renowned contemporary art series that occurs every 3 to 4 years. The 58th version, “Is it morning for you yet?,” runs through April 2.

Not keen to go it alone? Join one of several walking tours offered by Doors Open Pittsburgh. This nonprofit shares tales of the city’s neighborhoods through an architectural lens. “We’ve worked with a couple hundred buildings throughout the city,” says Executive Director Bonnie Baxter. “We work to provide access to those buildings to learn about Pittsburgh’s past, present, and future—and to listen to the stories these buildings have to tell.”

3. Theater

At the north end of Pittsburgh’s Cultural District, the 1903 Byham Theater is known for family-friendly events. Photo courtesy Visit Pittsburgh

At the north end of Pittsburgh’s Cultural District, the 1903 Byham Theater is known for family-friendly events. Photo courtesy Pittsburgh Cultural Trust

The 14-block Cultural District is the heart of Pittsburgh’s performing arts scene. The neighborhood’s cornerstone is Heinz Hall, which opened in 1927 as the Loew’s Penn Theater, Pittsburgh’s “Temple of the Cinema.” In the late 1960s, H.J. “Jack” Heinz II saved the once-opulent movie house from becoming a parking lot, an undertaking that spurred the neighborhood’s revitalization.

Now the home of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Heinz Hall is just one of several venues featuring everything from Broadway shows to modern dance, jazz, theater, comedy, and even magic. “Over the past decade, the Trust has welcomed millions of guests to the Cultural District by creating a wider variety of entertainment offerings,” says Kevin McMahon, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, the organization responsible for the Cultural District’s development. “And we’ve been very intentional and deliberate in the kinds of programming we’ve brought on board. Our theme is ‘Something for Everyone.’ ”

Named for the Pittsburgh native best known for creating the American Century Cycle, the August Wilson African American Cultural Center celebrates Black creativity and innovation through exhibitions, education, festivals, film, and live performances. Families will want to browse the calendar at the Byham Theater, a beautifully restored 1903 vaudeville house that features a robust children’s theater series.

Farther afield in the city’s North Side neighborhood, the historic New Hazlett Theater calls itself an incubator for artists, with productions that draw largely from local talent and range from original plays to contemporary dance to musical performance.

On Wednesdays the Elks Lodge on nearby Cedar Avenue hosts the weekly rehearsal of the Pittsburgh Banjo Club. Doors open at 7 for an evening filled with good music, food specials, and pitchers of beer. Be sure to grab a lyric book at the door—a few rollicking choruses of “Yes We Have No Bananas” is enough to delight even the most discerning culture vulture.

New York–based journalist Gina DeCaprio Vercesi writes about food, drink, and travel with an emphasis on history and conservation.