ABSTRACT
In the summer of 2002, two separate but interrelated events occurred in the Oakland neighborhood that surrounds the University of Pittsburgh. The first was a retrospective exhibition, "Designing Oakland," which showed a century of plans and planning in the neighborhood known as Pittsburgh's traditional cultural center (Carnegie Museum of Art 2002). The visitor's attention was drawn to several models, largely centered on and conceived by planners for the University of Pittsburgh. Chancellor Edward Litchfield's plan of 1958 portrayed an expanded university with new buildings extending well into Oakland's residential neighborhoods. Championed as "a new era for Oakland," the plan reflected the university's desire to become "a great university" (Breachler 1958, 2). The second, bolder proposal for Oakland, known as the Panther Hollow project, included an entire skyscraper laid on end and a technology park of hanging gardens, the "fust city of the 21st century" (Faust 1963, 7). These visions for university expansion slated several areas bordering the campus for clearance and redevelopment (Breachler 1958; Pittsburgh Regional Planning Association 1961).
