Good news: The Pierre Soulages mural, in the lobby of Downtown's One Oliver Plaza since 1968, wasn't destroyed as some observers feared might happen.

Not so good news: Its new home isn't in Pittsburgh.

The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, accepted the ceramic tile mural as a gift from the owners of One Oliver Plaza, which permitted its new tenant, the law firm K&L Gates, to remodel the lobby. That meant the removal last year of two large, abstract murals created for the building -- the Soulages and another by Virgil Cantini, which went to the University of Pittsburgh's Posvar Hall. The Soulages was offered to museums and arts organizations here, but none bit.

The Butler's director, Louis Zona, is thrilled to have it.

"That's been 'my' Soulages since I was a kid at the University of Pittsburgh," Dr. Zona said. "I loved that work. In fact, I would make trips to [Downtown] Pittsburgh to sit in the lobby and look at that mural. So when the opportunity came, we did what we had to do to take advantage of this and save this piece."

The mural, 20 feet long and 14 feet high with bold black and blue diagonal swaths on a mottled white ground, was painstakingly removed over a 10-day period last summer by Michigan tile restoration expert Larry Mobley. Now undergoing conservation -- some of its 294 tiles didn't easily come off and are being restored -- it will be installed in a 29-foot-square room designed and built especially to house it at one of the Butler's two satellite locations, the Trumbull Branch in suburban Howland east of Warren.

Fronted by a glass wall, the new room will make the mural visible to passers-by on East Market Street night and day when it's complete this summer.

In 2006, the Trumbull Branch mounted "Pierre Soulages: American Selections," featuring the painter's work in American collections, including Carnegie Museum of Art. At that time, the Butler tried to purchase the Soulages mural from One Oliver's owners, but they weren't interested in selling. In the end, Dr. Zona acquired the mural for the cost of removing it -- $18,000 including restoration. The funds were obtained from an account holding gifts to the Butler in memory of Max Draime, a collector and Butler benefactor whose favorite painter was Mr. Soulages.

"Pierre is a little delicate right now -- he's in his 90s -- but boy, I'd love to have him see this," said Dr. Zona, who met the artist in October at the opening of his retrospective at Paris' Centre Pompidou.

So the mural, titled "14 May, 1968," has gone to a place that understands and appreciates the artist's work, which can be powerful, dark and difficult. Carnegie Museum's Soulages painting, titled "24 November '63" and made two days after President Kennedy's assassination, is dominated by broad bands of black against a white and ochre ground.

The acquisition is great news for the Butler, and we congratulate them on it and thank them for rescuing it.

While it's another significant loss of patrimony for the city whose forefathers helped bring it into being, at least the mural is close to home.

Several readers wrote to say that on the night of the day my column about reader reaction to Duquesne Light's demolition of the former Pittsburgh Locomotive Works buildings ran ("Readers question demolition of Locomotive Works," Feb. 9), the utility removed the distinguishing feature of the complex's most distinctive building -- the round corner tower of the office building.

By daylight, an unsalvaged filing cabinet and desk on the second floor could be seen through the gaping slash.

Philadelphia planner Alan Greenberger will talk about the importance of design advocacy in city planning initiatives at 6 p.m. today at Point Park University. It's part of the Community Design Center of Pittsburgh's Design Excellence Lecture Series, which this season focuses on the theme "The Intentional City."

Mr. Greenberger directs the city planning commission (since 2008) and is acting deputy mayor for planning and economic development as well as director of commerce.

For background on his struggles with reduced staffing, why it's hard to get things done in the public sector and why doing development today is especially tough, read Thomas J. Walsh's in-depth Q&A from August 2009 at http://planphilly.com/node/9711.

After his 30-minute talk here, Mr. Greenberger will join in a panel discussion with Anne-Marie Lubenau, president of the Community Design Center; Noor Ismail, director of the Pittsburgh Department of City Planning; and Don Carter, director of the Remaking Cities Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Grant Oliphant, president of the Pittsburgh Foundation, will moderate.

The lecture series is held at Point Park's George Rowland White Theatre, University Center, 414 Wood St. Admission is $20 and includes a reception after the event.

"Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman," a film by Eric Bricker about the life and work of the California architectural photographer, plays Feb. 26-28 at Pittsburgh Filmmakers' Melwood Screening Room. Show times are not yet available for the 83-minute film narrated by Dustin Hoffman.

Mr. Shulman was the subject of the most recent exhibition at Carnegie Museum of Art's Heinz Architectural Center, which opens "Imagining Home" next Saturday, a survey by Heinz curator Tracy Myers drawn from works in the collection.

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