Wesley W. Posvar Hall

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Wesley W. Posvar Hall (WWPH) is the University of Pittsburgh’s largest academic building. It’s on the Pitt campus in Pittsburgh and sits on the former site of Forbes Field. The hall includes offices, classrooms, lecture halls, a food court, and computer labs. It is five stories tall and covers about 744,695 square feet.

The building houses several schools and programs, including Pitt’s School of Education, College of General Studies, School of Public and International Affairs, University Center for International Studies, and the social sciences departments of the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. It is connected by enclosed passageways to nearby buildings like David Lawrence Hall, the Barco Law Building, and the Litchfield Towers. Posvar Hall was designed in the Brutalist style, built with concrete and a limestone exterior, and its construction finished in 1978.

Posvar Hall sits on the original Forbes Field site. The former baseball stadium’s home plate is displayed inside the building under clear protection, and a portion of the outfield wall is marked outside. The classrooms were once numbered to reflect the stadium seating, but they were changed in 2004 to standard four-digit numbers.

The hall features notable art and displays. On the ground floor is Virgil Cantini’s mural Enlightenment and Joy, and near room 1500 you’ll find Cantini’s New Horizons, Skyscape. Tony Smith’s 20-foot-tall sculpture Light Up! stands outside between Posvar Hall and Hillman Library. The lobby also houses one of Langley Aerodromes—No. 6 from 1896—an early aircraft built by Samuel Langley. The aerodrome was restored by Pitt engineers and placed on display in 1980.

The building was originally called Forbes Quadrangle and was renamed Wesley W. Posvar Hall on October 21, 1999, in honor of Wesley W. Posvar, Pitt’s 15th chancellor. Construction began in 1975 and cost more than $38 million (about $153 million in 2024 dollars). The hall’s space is roughly comparable in size to the Cathedral of Learning, and it includes a two-level parking garage with almost 500 spaces.