Robert W. Schmertz is an architect, teacher and civic, leader in the arts who is nationally known in folk music and among architects for his avocation, writing ballads about architecture and the historic lore of his native Pittsburgh as well as gospel songs and songs for children.

His songs have been performed and recorded by Burl Ives, Pete Seeger and Tennessee Ernie Ford, most notably “Noah Found Grace in the Eyes of the Lord”, “The Lock-tender’s Lament” and “The Jolly Little House with the Queen Anne Front and the Mary Anne Behind”.

Singing his songs either to his own banjo accompaniment or with his group of folk singers and instrumentalists, Mr. Schmertz. has made four recordings of his own, a number of them on the Folkways label. Among the four albums are “Robert Schmertz Sings His Songs”, “Ladies Beware of an Architect”, and “Sing, Oh! the City, Oh!”. He is an accomplished cartoonist, and his own evocative and impertinent drawings embellish the covers of his records.

As an architect, Mr. Schmertz is widely known for the many notable residences he has designed in the Pittsburgh area over a period of nearly 40 years. His principal works also include two churches, the First Presbyterian Church, Youngstown, Ohio, and St. Michael’s of the Valley, Rector, Pennsylvania. He taught architectural design at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) for 35 years before his, retirement in 1965. He was chairman of the Pennsylvania State Art Commission from 1962 to 1968 and a member of the Pittsburgh Art Commission from 1940 to 1960.

Mr. Schmertz has been honored by his profession with elevation to Fellowship in The American Institute of Architects for distinction in education and public service, and with a, special Architectural Critic’s Citation which was awarded to him by the Pittsburgh Chapter of the A.I.A. in 1974 as recognition of the significant quotient of architectural criticism in his architectural ballads.

The lyrics of his songs suggest that, as an architecture critic, Mr. Schmertz is a cheerful - even merry - skeptic, but far too filled with love and hope for even aberrant humanity to be either a cynic or a pedant. The A.I.A. citation describes “an architecture critic who knows architecture and loves it, who tells us what he sees and leaves the judgments; to us - ‘If you can endure just pure architecture, get Walter or Mies or Corbu!’” (the late great “makers” of Modern Architecture - Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier).

The songs of early Pittsburgh evoke its real history with their vivid and often haunting images of the many kinds of people who made it - missionaries and Indians and soldiers, the great and the ordinary. There was young George Washington, who at 21 failed in his mission when he “came a-lookin’ and a-ridin’ and a-walkin’ to the Forks of the O-hi-o”. There was the Lonely Grenadier, “touched red by the evening sun, And I would hold him in my arms, Before his life is done” And the French “chef” at Fort Duquesne - “un Grand Artiste Culinaire” - who lovingly woos “un petit joli lapin” (a pretty little rabbit) into a gourmet’s rabbit stew - “un grand triomphe gastronomique!” - for his captain.

As the avocation of a dedicated professional architect and teacher of architecture, the ballads of Robert Schmertz provide, evidence, as his friend and fellow architect, Charles Stotz of Pittsburgh, once observed, “that even in these hectic days, one of us had the capacity for wasting time with elegance.”

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Robert Watson Schmertz was born March 4, 1898 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of William Irwin Schmertz and Sarah (McGrew) Schmertz. He is a graduate of Pittsburgh’s Peabody High School and of Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), where he received his Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1921.

Mr. Schmertz began his architectural career as a draftsman in the office of the noted Pittsburgh architect Henry Hornbostel, and later worked for two other leading architectural firms in Pittsburgh, the office of Benno Janssen and Ingham & Boyd. In 1932, at Ingham & Boyd, he worked on Chatham Village, Pittsburgh’s landmark housing development designed by Clarence Stein and Henry Wright of New York, with Ingham & Boyd, associated architects, and Ralph E. Griswold of Pittsburgh, landscape architect.

In addition to some of the most notable private residences in Pittsburgh, his principal works include Fox Chapel (Pennsylvania) Community Church (1950); St. Michael’s of the Valley Episcopal Church, Rector Pennsylvania (1954); Christian Education Wing, Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania (1956); First Presbyterian Church, Youngstown, Ohio (1966); and Benedum Community Center, Cameron, West Virginia (1968).

Mr. Schmertz taught architectural design at Carnegie Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University from 1930 to 1965, when he retired as Emeritus Associate Professor of Architecture.

A member of The American Institute of Architects since 1925, Mr. Schmertz was elevated to Fellowship in 1960 for distinction in education and public service. He had served as a director and as chairman of the Civic Design Committee of the Pittsburgh Chapter, A.I.A., which in 1974 awarded him a special Architectural Critics Citation recognizing his ballads about architecture and architects as highly perceptive architectural criticism. Mr. Schmertz has also been a longtime member of The Pittsburgh Architectural Club.

Mr. Schmertz was chairman of the Pennsylvania State Art Commission from 1962 to 1968 and a member of the Pittsburgh Art Commission from 1940 until 1960.

Mr. Schmertz was married in 1924 to the former Mildred Floyd of Pittsburgh, who died in 1963. There are two daughters, Mildred F. Schmertz, of New York City, an architect and graphic designer who is a senior editor of Architectural Record, and Gretchen Schmertz Jacob of Pittsburgh, a teacher of art in the Taylor Alderdice High School; and a son, John C. Schmertz of Pittsburgh, a research engineer with Westinghouse Electric. An older son, Robert W. Schmertz, Jr., died in 1947.