Nationality Rooms

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. There are seven additional rooms in the process of being approved and funded.

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

The Austrian Nationality Room represents the 18th-century era of the Austrian Empire during its age of enlightenment under Empress Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II and incorporates Baroque elements of the Haydnsaal in Schloss Esterházy at Eisenstadt where Joseph Haydn served as Kapellmeister from 1766 to 1778. Ceiling paintings depict scenes from Roman mythology similar to those in the Haydnsaal. The room features Lobmeyer crystal chandeliers, gilded white lacquer seminar furniture patterned after that in the formal dining hall of Vienna's Hofburg, royal red-tapestried walls, gold-leafed pilasters, and a parquet floor inlaid in a starburst design. Exhibits in the display cases in the room trace the development of the multinational Austrian Empire and the birthplaces of representative Austrian composers born within its borders between the years 1000 and 1918.

Chinese

The Chinese Classroom is inspired by the design of a palace hall in Beijing's Forbidden City and is dedicated to the memory of Confucius and his democratic ideal of classless education. The teacher and students sit at the same level around a moon-shaped teakwood table. The professor's chair is carved with the admonition to "Teach by inspiring gradually and steadily". A slate portrait of Confucius is present that is patterned after one in the Confucian temple at his birthplace of Qufu in Shandong Province. Above the red lacquered door, Chinese characters are carved into the stone lintel that proclaim that "Humility of mind goes with loftiness of character." Stone lions flank the entrance before carvings of the plum blossom, the national flower of China. The ceiling contains a coiling golden five-clawed imperial dragon surrounded by clouds denoting nature's energy and freedom. Painted squares portray dragons guarding the pearl of wisdom and the phoenix with the motan flower, a symbol of cultural wealth. The opened blackboard doors reveal painted renditions of the babao, or Eight Treasures, popular in Chinese art. On the base below is a carved version of the Bagua which consists of eight trigrams surrounding the circular Yin and Yang. Windows consist of frosted glass with stylized cames.

Czechoslovak

The Czechoslovak Classroom combines elements of a Slovak farmhouse, country church, and the Charles University in Prague while detailing men who contributed to Czechoslovak culture. The motto of the classroom, and of the former Czechoslovak government in exile, is proclaimed by the inscription of "Pravda Vítězí" which translates to "Truth Will Prevail" and surrounds a bronze relief portrait of the first President and founder of Czechoslovakia Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. In a wrought-iron case near the window bay, a letter penned by the hand of Masaryk to students at the University of Pittsburgh recalls John Amos Comenius' belief that "education is the workshop of humanity". All woodwork, except the furniture, is made of larch wood which grows to great heights in the Carpathian Mountains. The ceiling, with flat boards overlapping each other between heavy beams, is painted by Prague artists Karel Svolinský and Marie Svolinská and depicts botanically accurate flowers and plants of Czechoslovakia and reflects a typical Slovak farmer's home and the style of country churches. A "tree of life" design on the rear wall surrounds the text of the proclamation by King of Bohemia and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Charles IV that marked the founding of the University of Prague in 1348. The plaster reveals of the bay window area is decorated by murals of miraculous trees bearing flowers and fruits and harboring animals, birds, and insects reflecting "peasant writings" and executed by the artists in freehand. Ceiling panels portray eight famous persons in Czech and Slovak history from the 9th through 19th centuries including Cyril and Methodius who created the Cyrillic script, Waclaw who was the "Good King Wenceslaus" of the Christmas Carol, Jan Hus who was a champion of Czech religious freedom, John Amos Comenius who is considered the father of modern education, Ján Kollár a Slovak poet who called for Slavic unity, Ľudovít Štúr who developed the Slovak literary language, and Bishop Stefan Moyzes who pioneered popular education in Slovakia. Intarsia done by V. Kopka of Moravia are found on the entrance door panels and the professor's desk and lectern which depicts university academic disciplines. Embroidery, lace, Bohemian crystal, and historical documents are displayed in the wall cabinet.

Early American

The Early American Room is one of two display rooms not used as a functional classroom, although it is opened for guided tours. The room was commissioned by longtime University Pittsburgh trustee George Hubbard Clapp, a descendant nine generations removed from Roger Clapp, an English captain who sailed into the New England port of Hull on May 30, 1630. The kitchen-living room of the early colonists was chosen to portray the sturdy simplicity of life in America during the 1650s. The room's focus is a nine-foot fireplace constructed from 200-year-old handmade bricks with "fixings" of a log hook, heavy iron kettles, a spider, gridiron, longhandled waffle iron, bread shovel, skewers, ladles, and forks. A small recess in the brick wall served to bake bread. A tapered pole swings out from the end of the fireplace to be used for drying laundry or to hang a quilt to keep the cold draft from those gathered near the fire. Massive hand-hewn pine beams used in the seven-foot-high ceiling and the fireplace were collected after a careful search in Massachusetts. White pine is used for the heavy seminar table, benches, and chairs. Wrought-iron candelabra are hinged with clasps to hold lighting tapers. Other light fixtures are of specially designed pierced tin. The colonial-style windows were designed by glass artist Charles Connick. Decorative items include a collection of 17th- and 18th-century American coins, a working spinning wheel, and a hand-stitched sampler. The small closet between the blackboard and fireplace contains a secret panel and once the concealed latch is discovered, its release causes the wall to swing open, revealing a hidden staircase to the upper loft, which has been furnished as a 19th-century bedroom. Included in the bedroom is a four-poster rope bed and small cradle, both of which belonged to pianist and composer Ethelbert Nevin. The bedroom also includes several personal items, including an 1878 wedding quilt, which belonged to Waitman Worthington McDaniel and his wife Martha Jane Poe, a distant relative of Edgar Allan Poe and the grandmother of Nationality Director Maxine Bruhns. The room is associated with various stories of unexplained incidents that have resulted in claims that the room is haunted.

English

The English Classroom is designed in the Tudor-Gothic style after the House of Commons that was rebuilt by Sir Charles Barry following the fire of 1834. The English Classroom is the largest of the Nationality Rooms and incorporates several original items given as gifts from the British Government from the damaged House of Commons, whose Chamber was completely destroyed, following its bombing by the Luftwaffe in 1941, including the stone fireplace, hearth tiles, linenfold oak paneling, entrance doorframe, lintel, and corbels. The fireplace is from the Commons' "Aye Lobby", so named because members walk through it to vote "yes" to a bill, and is marked with the initials V.R. for Victoria Regina. The cast-iron fireback and andirons commemorate the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and an inscription above the fireplace is from Shakespeare's ''King Richard II'' and uses lettering adapted from the letter tiles originally designed for medieval paving by the Monks of Chertsey Abbey in Surrey. The inscription reads: "Set in the silver sea.....this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England." Above the doorway hangs a royal coat of arms made in 1688 during the reign of King James II. The linenfold paneling itself arrived at the University still having a blackened coat from the bombing. Under the ceiling trusses are four carved limestone corbels from the House of Commons that are carved with a Tudor rose. Two corbels remain uncarved to emphasize the original carved corbels. The window frames, set in limestone, are characteristic of the Tudor period, and contain old imported glass, seeded and tinted, and encased in small, diamond-shaped leaded frames. Stained-glass window medallions depict the coats of arms of English towns and cities, literary and political figures, scholars of the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and the Houses of Lords and Commons. Portraits of University of Pittsburgh alumnus and former Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, Andrew Mellon, and the former Earl of Chatham, William Pitt, after whom the City was named, flank the stained glass windows in the rear bay. A brick from 10 Downing Street serves as the room's cornerstone. The white oak floor is fitted together with wooden peg dowels. Tudor-Gothic oak benches resemble the old House of Commons benches and are similarly arranged. Two English oak tables with melon-shaped legs stand before the bay. Two House of Commons Library chairs upholstered in green leather and bearing the official gold crest featuring the portcullis and crown were a gift of Lord Alfred Bossom and were rebuilt using wood from actual chairs in the bombed House of Commons.

French

The French Classroom was designed by Jacques Carlu, Director of School of Architecture in Fontainebleau, in the French Empire Period that reflects a French style inspired by the glories of the ancient and classical past that were rediscovered during the Napoleonic campaigns in Greece, Italy, and Egypt. This places the timeframe of inspiration for the classroom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, just after the founding of the University of Pittsburgh in 1787, therefore making it the only classroom which represents an era postdating the founding of the University, although many room elements are influenced by the Palace of Versailles which clearly predates it. The color scheme of the room is blue-gray, royal blue, and gold, which were suggested by French-American architect Paul Philippe Cret and are typical colors used at the height of the French Empire. The walls of the room are lined with wood paneling in classical proportions, and slender wall pilasters are capped with delicately carved ad gilded crowns. Carved ornaments of the Egyptian griffin and classical rosettes accentuate panel divisions. A wall cabinet containing art objects, books, and medallions balances the entrance door and maintains the room's symmetry. Crystal and metal chandeliers, which are simplified versions of those found in Palace of Versailles' Hall of Mirrors, hang from a grey plaster ceiling. A parquet floor pattern also reflects many rooms in the Palace of Versailles. A mahogany professor's chair and table are of the Directoire period design include bronze ornaments imported from France that are replicas of originals of Empire furniture in the Louvre. The mahogany student tablet armchairs are upholstered in royal blue. On the rear wall, a 16th-century Choufleur tapestry depicts an allegorical woodland scene including, among other animals, a unicorn which often served as a central figure in tapestries and legends from the Middle Ages. Gold damask draperies with a wreath and lyre motif add to the sense of French opulence and frame the windows which look out on the University's Heinz Memorial Chapel, itself an example of French Gothic architecture inspired by the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.

German

The German Classroom was designed by German-born architect Frank A. Linder to reflect the 16th century German Renaissance as exemplified in the Alte Aula (Great Hall) of the University of Heidelberg. The woodwork of the room was done by German-born Philadelphia decorator Gustav Ketterer and includes walnut paneling framing the blackboards, columns carved with arabesques flanking the two entrance doorways, and support broken-arch pediments surmounted by carved polychromed crests of the two oldest German universities: Heidelberg (1386) and Leipzig (1409). The doors are mounted with ornate wrought-iron hinges and locks, and their upper panels are decorated with intarsia depicting the central square of Nürnberg on the front door and the fountain of Rothenburg on the rear door. Carved in the architrave above the paneling are the names of famous philosophers, poets, musicians, artists, and scientists. The intarsia doors of the four corner cabinets feature tales from German folklore including Parsifal who searched for the Holy Grail, Siegfried who was the hero of the Nibelungenlied, the maiden wooed in Goethe's poem ''Heidenröslein'', and Lorelei who was the golden-haired Rhine maiden whose song lured sailors to destruction. Painted on the escutcheon above the front blackboard are words from Friedrich Schiller's ''Das Ideal und das Leben'', "Stern endeavor, which no arduous task can shake, to the hidden fount of true attains." The rear wall has a quotation from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's ''Was wir bringen'' which reads: "Great mastery results from wise restraint, and law alone points the way to liberty." Furniture includes the professor's leather upholstered chair stands on a small platform behind a burled walnut table and student tablet armchairs are walnut with scroll backs. Wrought-iron chandeliers are the work of German craftsman. The display case contains gifts of artworks and books from Germany's Ministry of Education. The stained-glass windows were designed by master stained glass artist Charles Connick, however they were not completed until 1953 by Connick protege Frances Van Arsdale Skinner. The windows depict characters in the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Hansel and Gretel, and Cinderella.

Greek

The classical architecture of the Greek Classroom represents 5th-century BCE. Athens, the Golden Age of Pericles and includes marble columns and a coffered ceiling. Colored details from the Acropolis' Propylaea and Erectheum appear on white marble. The floor is paved with rectangular slabs of Dionessos Pentelic marble with dark vein. Gray Kokinara marble is used for the dado. The room's columns and pilasters, as well as the coffered ceiling, bear painted decorations identical to those used on ancient Greek structures. The artwork was done by Athenian artist Demetrios Kokotsis who used the traditional encaustic painting method, employing earth colors and beeswax applied freehand which was then overlaid with 24-carat gold leaf rubbed on by polishing bones which required two men more than seven months to complete. White oak furniture, patterned after designs on Greek vases, is decorated with gold-leaf carvings and sunburst inlays of ebony. Student chair backs carry the names of Greek islands and towns. The professor's and guests' chairs bear the names of Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates. A line from Homer's Iliad exhorts students to strive for nobility and excellence. The deep red wall color is repeated in the drapery valance with its Greek key design. Archives in the alcove cabinet record visits by the Queen of Greece, and by ecclesiastic and diplomatic officials. In 1940, one of two marble pilasters for the room that was being constructed in Greece from the Mt Pentele stone quarry used to build the Parthenon, cracked shortly before shipping to the United States. With an invading World War II army massing on its borders, the column could not be replaced. Greek architect John Travlos ordered a matching crack etched into the undamaged column in order to preserve the symmetry. The marble was transported on the last ship to sail to America prior to the invasion and occupation of Greece. In November 1941, Travlos crouched under a blanket in his apartment closet listening to banned BBC
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