The Nationality Rooms are a group of 31 classrooms in the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning depicting and donated by the national and ethnic groups that helped build the city of Pittsburgh. The rooms are designated as a Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation historical landmark and are located on the 1st and 3rd floors of the Cathedral of Learning, itself a national historic landmark, on the University of Pittsburgh's main campus in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Although of museum caliber, 29 of the 31 rooms are used as daily classrooms by University of Pittsburgh faculty and students, while the other two (the Early American and Syrian-Lebanon) are display rooms viewed through glass doors, utilized primarily for special events, and can only be explored via special guided tour. The Nationality Rooms also serve in a vigorous program of intercultural involvement and exchange in which the original organizing committees for the rooms remain as participants and which includes a program of annual student scholarship to facilitate study abroad. In addition, the Nationality Rooms inspire lectures, seminars, concerts exhibitions, and social events which focus on the various heritages and traditions of the nations represented. The national, traditional, and religious holidays of the nations represented are celebrated on campus and the rooms are appropriately decorated to reflect these occasions. The Nationality Rooms are available daily for public tours as long as the particular room is not being used for a class or other university function.
History The Nationality Room Program was founded by Ruth Crawford Mitchell at the request of Pitt Chancellor John Bowman in 1926, in order to involve the community in constructing the Cathedral of Learning and to provide the spiritual and symbolic foundation of the Cathedral that would make the inside of the building as inspiring and impressive as the outside. Under Mitchell's direction, invitations were extended to national communities in the Pittsburgh area to sponsor a room that was representative of their heritage. Each group formed a Room Committee responsible for fundraising, designing, and acquisition. The university provided the room and upkeep in perpetuity once completed, while all other materials, labor, and design were provided by the individual committees. These were sometimes partly provided for by foreign governments which, "...responded with generous support, often providing architects, artists, materials, and monetary gifts to assure authenticity and superb quality in their classrooms." Each room is carefully designed and executed down to the switch plates, door handles, hinges, and wastebaskets. The work is often performed and designed by native artists and craftsmen and involves imported artifacts and materials. Mitchell remained Director of the Nationality Rooms program until 1956, having overseen the creation of the first 19 rooms on the first floor of the cathedral. A successor to Mitchell wasn't named until 1965 when E. Maxine Bruhns took over the program, overseeing the completion of twelve additional rooms on the third floor. Bruhns retired on Jan. 1, 2020, after 54 years in the position, and died in July 2020.
A typical room on the 1st floor built between 1938 and 1957 took between three and ten years to complete, and would have cost the equivalent of $ today, which was no small undertaking, especially considering that the fundraising and construction of the initial rooms took place during the Great Depression and World War II. More recent rooms have cost in the range of US$750,000 and up, and took up to ten years to complete. Upon completion of their rooms, the committees turn to a program of intercultural exchange and fundraising for nationality rooms scholarships which enable University of Pittsburgh students and faculty to study abroad. The room committees also sponsor cultural and fundraising events, lectures, concerts, exhibits, social events, and workshops on ethnic studies that may utilize the rooms. The committee may use its room for non-political meetings, lectures, or other functions if no classes are scheduled. Distinguished international visitors are received by the committees, and special projects are undertaken including the purchase of books for the University libraries, publication of volumes on topics from comparative literature to ethnic recipes, and the fostering of courses in the mother languages. National, traditional, and religious holidays are celebrated on campus, and committees decorate their rooms or mount displays to commemorate special occasions.
The first four rooms to be dedicated were the Scottish, Russian, German, and Swedish Rooms in 1938." The newest rooms are the Turkish and Swiss rooms, both dedicated in 2012, the Korean room dedicated in 2015, and the Philippine Room dedicated in 2019.
Original plans also proposed, in addition to the Nationality Rooms on the first floor, the creation of "Pennsylvania" classrooms on the second floor to be dedicated to the pioneering groups within the state along with third floor "Pittsburgh" classrooms dedicated to showcasing the history of the Western Pennsylvania or different eras of American history. Although the plans for the series of rooms were drawn up, only one room was installed, the Early American Classroom, which is now counted among the other Nationality Rooms. The plans for the other Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania rooms were never executed, and the Nationality Room program grew to occupy all of the first and much of the third floor.
Upon completion of a room, a dedication ceremony is held with a formal presentation of a ceremonial key to the university's Chancellor to symbolize the bestowal and acceptance of the gift, and a commitment by the university to maintain the room in perpetuity. The nationality room committee officers then become members of the Nationality Council which provides scholarships for summer study abroad for Pitt students, along with other non-political cultural or educational events within the Nationality Program's scope. Today, the cathedral is home to 31 Nationality Rooms (29 working classrooms and two display rooms: the Early American Room and the Syrian-Lebanon Room), on the first and third floors. Each nationality room celebrates a different culture that influenced Pittsburgh's growth, depicting an era prior to 1787, the university's founding and the signing of the United States Constitution. Only one room does not follow this convention, with the French Classroom depicting the First French Empire of the early 19th century. An additional room, the Finnish national room, is currently under construction.
Set in the Cathedral of Learning's cornerstone in 1937 is a gift from the Nationality Room Committee chairpersons to the university: a copper plate engraved with these thoughts:
Faith and peace are in their hearts. Good will has brought them together. Like the Magi of ancestral traditions and the shepherds of candid simplicity, they offer their gifts of what is precious, genuine and their own, to truth that shines forever and enlightens all people.
Since 1944, tours of the nationality rooms have been given to visitors by a Pitt student organization, Quo Vadis (Latin: Where do you go?), that guides over 40,000 tourists a year. With reservations, specially themed tours based on creature symbolism, images of royalty, and folktales are also given. An estimated 100,000 visitors, including self-guided and walk-in tourists, visit the Nationality Rooms each year.
Principles
The following principles, in order to assure commonality of purpose, authenticity, and non-political cultural emphasis, governed the creation of nationality rooms from the programs inception in 1926 until the completion of the Irish Classroom in 1957. A Nationality Room must illustrate one of the outstanding architectural or design traditions of a nation that is recognized as such by the United States Department of State. The design of a given historical period must be cultural and aesthetic, not political. The period depicted should be prior to 1787, the year the university was founded. To avoid political implications in the room, no political symbol is permitted in the decorations, nor a portrait or likeness of any living person. The only place a political symbol may be used is in the corridor stone above the room's entrance. No donor recognition may appear in the rooms. Donor recognition to the rooms is recorded in a Donor Book. Most architects and designers of the rooms have been born and educated abroad. This has been instrumental in ensuring authenticity of design.
In the 1970s, policy revisions were implemented which retaining most of the earlier principles, utilized a broader definition of nation to include a body of people associated with a particular territory and possessing a distinctive cultural and social way of life. This allowed the creation of the Armenian and Ukrainian rooms prior to their establishment as independent nations following the collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as allowing for the installation of the African Heritage Room.
The room must also be a functional teaching classroom with enough student tablet-armed seats, professor's lectern or table, adequate sight lines and lighting, modern audiovisual technology, and other necessities of a classroom. New rooms also have narrated tour equipment. Materials are to remain authentic and durable that are executed through architectural form and not mere surface embellishment and are to provide eternal qualities that have the potential to "teach" about the cultures with appropriate non-political symbols and artifacts.
Classrooms
African Heritage
The African Heritage Classroom was designed to reflect an 18th-century Asante temple courtyard in Ghana which would provide the setting for ceremonial events, learning, and worship. The classroom represents the entire continent of Africa with Yoruba-style door carvings by Nigerian sculptor Lamidi O. Fakeye depicting ancient kingdoms of Africa including Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, Benin, Kongo/Angola, Kuba, Mali, and Zimbabwe. Plaster forms in the frieze represent the arts, music, science, languages, and literature of Africa. A display case housing artifacts from various African nations and the chalkboard area reflect patos around the courtyard. Below the chalkboard doors depicting the Igbo lozenge and star motif are Sankofa birds which symbolize the need to learn from the past in order to prepare for the future. The oxblood steps, two levels of student benches, and wainscot with relief decorations suggest the polished clay of an Asante temple. Openwork screens are present on the windows as they are used in Asante structures to filter the sun's rays while allowing air flow. Six chieftain stools provide informal seating near a hand-carved professor's lectern.
Armenian
The Armenian Classroom was inspired by the 10th- to 12th-century Sanahin Monastery. The design consists of intersecting arches and a domed ceiling built to lessen damage from frequent earthquakes in that country. The room's arches, built of Indiana limestone, make this the heaviest of the Nationality Rooms, weighing 22 tons, and required the second floor beneath the room to be reinforced in order to support its weight. The cornerstone is a basalt stone from the grounds of Sanahin. In the mortar behind it are the thumbprints of five of the oldest Armenian diaspora living in the Pittsburgh area, as well as the handprint of an infant of Armenian descent, symbolizing the continuity of the Armenian presence in western Pennsylvania.
Austrian