ABSTRACT
The Pennsylvania Museum of Art’s Corinthian style makes it appear as if its construction is coincident with Frank Snowden, Jr.’s Blacks in Antiquity instead of its contemporaneous construction 1925 ad. Julian Abele’s name has been bandied about as the architect of the art museum. However flattering it is a misattribution. The building’s footprint and massing were imagined by the Office of Horace Trumbauer’s Howell Lewis Shay. Julian Abele took over from Shay and ornamented facades, prepared floor plans for the three-story museum, designed the Great Stair Hall, Foyer, Sculpture Rotunda and subterranean Basement which housed the Service Tunnel and inside the tunnel the Broad Street Subway Station.
