It was erected from 1913 to 1914 at a cost of $230,000 (equivalent to $7.09 million in 2023)[3] to construct and equip,[4] and it was dedicated on February 26, 1915, in a ceremony in which the Mellon brothers turned over the keys of the institute to university Chancellor Samuel McCormick.

The School of Medicine's library, administrative offices, several faculty offices, histology and embryology labs, as well as its departments of physiologic chemistry, physiology and pharmacy all moved into the building, freeing Pennsylvania Hall of all but the medical school's first year courses in anatomy and pathology.

[8] Today Allen Hall is home to offices, classrooms, and labs of the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

The facade at the entrance of this building has a plaque to honor Madame Curie, commemorating the 100th anniversary in 1967 of her birth, the conferring of an honorary degree in 1921, her visit to the plants of the Standard Chemical Company, its role as a major radium producer and in the making of the gram of radium presented to Marie Curie by President Warren G. Harding, and the role of Glenn Donald Kammer, a University of Pittsburgh graduate who supervised its production.

The plaque was unveiled on September 20, 1969, by the Archbishop of Kraków, Poland, Cardinal Wojtyła, who in 1978 became Pope John Paul II.