Concept

For this project I captured the main façade of St. Peter and Paul's Church in East Liberty using drone pictures and photogrammetry. This grand and beautiful church was once at the center of a large German Catholic community based in the East End. It was built in 1890, rebuilt in 1909 after a fire, and finally abandoned in 1992 when the parish merged with five other Catholic parishes. The church's fate is precarious. Will it be demolished? Rebuilt? Or left to rot? Apparently in the winter, tiles from the bell towers fall on the nearby parking lot.

I chose such a place for practical but also symbolic reasons. My first desire was to try to create 3D maps of larger blocks of land within Pittsburgh - but this proved difficult as I was booted out of parks and approached by the police twice. The only place I worked unbothered was around the church - an area that conveys decay unfortunately. If the church were to be demolished, a 3D model of its façade is a way to capture another representation of it for the future.

I also shot an abandoned school next to the church in a similar state of disarray.