Rodef Shalom Congregation will mark the 100th anniversary of its building and the 150th birthday of the congregation with an afternoon of lectures and discussions open to the community.

At the free event, titled "Historical Symposium: Honoring Our Builders and Building," Brandeis University professor Jonathan Sarna will give the keynote address: "The Place of Rodef Shalom in the History of American Judaism." Two panel discussions will follow. The first, on Rodef Shalom's building designed by Henry Hornbostel, features Eliza Smith Brown, author of "Pittsburgh Legends and Visions: An Illustrated History"; Charles Rosenblum, assistant professor of architecture, Carnegie Mellon University; and Albert M. Tannler, Historical Collections Director of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. The second panel will discuss the congregation's builders and early members who made significant contributions to the development of Rodef Shalom and the Pittsburgh community.

The event will be at 1 p.m. Nov. 4 at Rodef Shalom, corner of Fifth and Morewood avenues, Oakland.

More HH news

On a recent "Antiques Roadshow" from Philadelphia, a man brought in a painting he had inherited from his mother and learned a little more about the artist, Pittsburgh native and stained-glass master George Sotter (1879-1953). The appraiser, New York art dealer Nan Chisholm, valued it between $120,000 and $180,000, but both she and the owner were stumped by Sotter's inscription in the lower right corner: "To Horny Compliments of G.W. Sotter." The owner, whose mother, Helen Hale, had been a free-spirited artist in her youth, thought perhaps she was the "Horny" one.

The credits were still rolling (and I was still chuckling) as I dashed to the keyboard and sent off an e-mail to Chisholm, telling her "Horny" was the nickname of Pittsburgh architect Henry Hornbostel, who was head of Carnegie Tech's fine arts department when Sotter taught there.

But this was something Chisholm already knew, because the show was a repeat that first aired in January and two others had tipped her off to Horny's identity. Now she is trying to sell the painting for the owner.

The painting depicts a village scene in Rocky Neck, East Gloucester, Mass., circa 1915. The Rocky Neck art colony attracted painters Marsden Hartley, Childe Hassam and Maurice Prendergast, among others. Sotter's work depicts the waterfront artists cottages, elevated on stilts, and the dirt road that ran behind them.

How the painting traveled from Hornbostel's collection into the hands of Hale is unknown, as are the circumstances of Sotter's gift to HH. Chisholm is turning it over to Pittsburgh dealer Sam Berkovitz, who may find a receptive audience here, given Hornbostel's and Sotter's considerable contributions to the local landscape.

AIA Design Awards

For an overview of projects that Pittsburgh architecture firms consider their best recent work, visit the American Institute of Architects' Design Awards Exhibit from 5 to 9 p.m. Oct. 19. Part of the Cultural District's Gallery Crawl, it will be held at 933 Penn Ave., Downtown. Work is represented in words and images mounted on boards.

Jurors for the AIA Pittsburgh awards are three architects from the Boston area: Carol Burns, Mary-Ann Agresti and Matthew Littell. The awards program is 6 to 9 p.m. Oct. 25 at 933 Penn Ave. For information, visit www.aiapgh.org.

David Lewis Lecture

Hank Dittmar, chief executive of The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment, will present a free public lecture, "Tradition and Sustainability: Truly Green Architecture and Urbanism," at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 5 at Carnegie Museum of Art Theater in Oakland. The London-based foundation is an educational charity established by Prince Charles to teach and demonstrate principles of traditional urban design and architecture.

Dittmar, an American, also is chairman of the board of the nonprofit Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), which promotes the creation and restoration of compact, walkable, mixed-use cities, towns, and neighborhoods.

His talk, the sixth annual David Lewis Lecture on Urban Design, is sponsored by the Heinz Architectural Center of the Carnegie Museum of Art and underwritten by Urban Design Associates in honor of Lewis, the firm's founder and Carnegie Mellon University professor emeritus.

In related news, in New York last month, Lewis received the President's Award from the International Downtown Association at its annual conference. The award recognizes a person who has changed the direction of downtowns, business districts, or communities in an important, significant and positive way.

LEED for landscapes

Hoping to build on the success of the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED certification program, the American Society of Landscape Architects is promoting a new rating system, the Sustainable Sites Initiative, to measure the sustainability of landscape design projects. The council is lending its support and eventually will adopt the program into its LEED system.

The ASLA is collaborating with the University of Texas at Austin's Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the United States Botanic Garden on the initiative. It will be a few years before it's implemented: The rating system will be available in spring 2011; pilot projects testing it will begin in 2010 and evaluations will be made in 2012.