pitt nationality rooms tour

Pitt Bar links

• University Center for International Studies
• Find People
• Gift Center
• Scholarships
• News & Events

There are several ways to experience the rooms. Self-guided recorded tours and university student guided tours are available year round. You can also "tour the rooms" online through pictures, videos, and audio.

Recorded Tours

To handle the large number of visitors, a recorded tour, describing the rooms’ elements, is available. It supplements the tour guide program and allows guests to proceed through the rooms at their own pace. Beginning with the Israel Heritage Room in 1987, each third-floor Nationality Room has its own narrated tour which can run from five to eight minutes. Today, tours are available 360 days a year (as described on the “Operating Hours” section.)

When school is in session the rooms function as university classrooms. Give great care to not disturb classes that are occupying rooms.  Audiotape tours are only available on weekends.

• Fall Term (late August to the December recess)
• Spring Term (January to the term's end in April) 

School is out of session from the end of April to the beginning of the Fall Term in September. During this time, audiotape tours are available Sundays through Saturdays. 

Guided Tours

Over the years, many highly-talented students invest a semester of their time to acquire a thorough and accurate knowledge of each Nationality Room which enables them to interpret the classrooms and to knowledgably answer any questions that might be asked. The history of the Cathedral of Learning is included. Trainees are required to pass both a written and oral exam before becoming a member of the organization. 

Guided group tours are available for groups of ten or more; reservations must be made two weeks in advance. Group tours booked when school is in session can only visit available rooms not in use for classes.  To request a guided, group tour, contact the Tour Coordinator at [email protected] or [email protected] .

Adults $4 Youths (6-18 years) $2

Prepare for your visit or experience the rooms via an online "tour". See images of the rooms with accompanying text and audio descriptions. Visit  http://www.pitt.edu/~natrooms/pages/allnr.html  and choose between the first and third floor rooms.  

Interested University of Pittsburgh students train every year to become guides.  If interested in becoming a guide, contact the Tour Coordinator and Quo Vadis Advisor .

• Summer Tours

For questions related to tours, tour hours, and admission rates, call 412.624.6000.

For questions related to the Gift Center and its merchandise, call 412.624.1282.

Summer Abroad Scholarships

Congratulations to the 2013 winners of the Summer Study Abroad Nationality Rooms Scholarships.

Search form

Take a virtual tour of the nationality rooms.

The Nationality Rooms are located on the first and third floors of the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning. The rooms were designed to represent the culture of various ethnic groups that settled in Allegheny County and are supported by these cultural groups and governments. The rooms are also in use as University classrooms.  The Nationality Rooms have recently begun virtual tours so you can enjoy these rooms at any time.   Enjoy visiting these incredible rooms online !

A Place Unlike Any Other

Book a Guided Tour!

Welcome to the Nationality Rooms

The Nationality Rooms represent and celebrate the culture of the diverse communities of Pittsburgh. The Rooms are a community space where you're invited to experience your heritage in a space that's timeless and austere, yet dynamic and alive.

The rooms are also in use as University classrooms, giving students the opportunity to learn in a unique setting that gives them a hands-on experience with these rich heritages.

Carefully crafted, the Nationality Rooms create an intriguing space for learning.

Explore the Rooms

The Nationality Rooms are both at the heart of the University and at the center of community life of the city of Pittsburgh. The story of the Rooms is the story of the communities that are the heartbeat of Pittsburgh.

The mission of the Nationality Rooms and Intercultural Exchange Programs is aided by the room committees, which have devoted decades to the creation of Nationality Rooms. 

The Rooms are made possible through the dedication of community members.

Explore the Committees

The University of Pittsburgh and the Room Committees are happy to partner together to pay forward the entrusted legacy of the Nationality Rooms.

This is accomplished through generous scholarship opportunities provided by the University and the support of our local communities.

Each year, scholarships enable students and educators to deepen their global understanding.

Explore Scholarships

Upcoming Events

• Free Things to Do
• Tours & Sightseeing
• Outdoor Adventure
• Arts & Culture
• Health & Wellness
• Pittsburgh Sports Teams
• Casinos & Gaming
• Film Festivals
• Submit Your Event
• This Week in Pittsburgh
• Annual Events
• Holiday Events
• Halloween Events
• Food Festivals
• Marathons, Runs & Walks
• Pittsburgh Celebrates Juneteenth Freedom Day
• Pittsburgh Black Music Festival
• Hotels & Resorts
• Bars & Nightlife
• Pittsburgh Craft Breweries
• Wineries & Distilleries
• Farms & Farmers Markets
• Pittsburgh Insiders Guide
• Multi-lingual Brochures
• Beyond Pittsburgh
• Transportation
• Explore Black Culture & Heritage
• LGBTQIA+ Travel in Pittsburgh
• Pet-friendly Travel
• College Visits
• Senior Travel
• Medical Travel
• Accessibility Guide
• Welcome Centers
• Downtown Pittsburgh
• Strip District
• Mount Washington
• North Shore & North Side
• Lawrenceville
• East Liberty
• Squirrel Hill
• Monroeville
• Meet in Pittsburgh
• Event Services
• Marketing Toolkit
• Show Your Badge
• About SportsPITTSBURGH
• Sports Event Planner
• Sports Facilities
• Calendar of Events
• Sports Event Attendee
• Power of Sports Economy
• Weddings & Reunions

Nationality Rooms

Thirty-one Nationality and Heritage Rooms depict Pittsburgh's ethnic heritages - European, Asian, Middle Eastern and African - through authentic examples of architecture and décor. Guided tours are offered at appointed times throughout the week, and gifts and publications are available for purchase at the Nationality Room’s Visitor Center. For more information on the Nationality and Heritage Rooms, booking a Tour, or Hours of Operation, please visit www.nationalityrooms.pitt.edu.

• Charged Parking
• Parking Available

Nationality Rooms Cathedral of Learning, 4200 Fifth Ave. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260

Adult Admission

Child admission, senior admission, related stories & events.

Pittsburgh is KidsBURGH®

Throughout Pittsburgh’s evolution from a steel-producing town to a hub for tech innovation, leaders have prioritized creating and providing opportunities…

Haunted Pittsburgh

Scroll on...if you dare

This site uses cookies to enhance your experience.

Quick Search

Location map.

About the Nationality Rooms & Intercultural Exchange Programs

The Nationality Rooms were designed to represent and celebrate the cultures of various ethnic groups that settled in Allegheny County.  The thirty-one Nationality Rooms located on the first and third floors of the Cathedral of Learning are a community space where visitors are invited to experience the rich heritage of the communities who inspired and supported their creation.  The Nationality Rooms are also in use as university classrooms, giving students the opportunity to engage in learning in a unique setting that helps them to explore the historic diversity of the Pittsburgh region. 

Quo Vadis --the Latin phrase that means “Where will you go?” -- inspired the name of the student organization founded in 1944 that offers guided tours of the Nationality Rooms for nearly 30,000 visitors each year. Quo Vadis Guides are trained to present factual information using their own creative inspiration. Special interpretations of tours are adapted to meet the needs of visitors, and tours may focus on themes such as architecture, interior design, art, mythology, or religion. Quo Vadis provides early professional training in museum interpretation and visitor services, public speaking, and intercultural learning. The Quo Vadis Guides also create traditional folk craft such as jezyks , handmade paper pointed star ornaments derived from Polish tradition. The proceeds from selling these crafts are the main fundraiser for Quo Vadis, enabling them to hold educational meetings and travel to visit museums and embassies.

To this day, each Nationality Room Committee that designed, planned, and raised the funds to build a classroom remains an active partner on the Pitt campus and in the community. The Nationality Committees--comprised of community volunteers--organize educational and cultural programming and raise funds for scholarships to support intercultural learning opportunities for Pitt students to honor an ideal - education through cultural exchange.

The Nationality Rooms and Intercultural Exchange Programs Office oversees the ongoing maintenance of the museum quality classrooms and artifacts, the construction of new rooms, administers the scholarships, and collaborates with the Nationality Rooms Committees and with academic and other administrative units to advance intercultural learning and to foster an appreciation of diverse perspectives on the Pitt campus and in the community.   

There are currently 31 Nationality Rooms at the University of Pittsburgh.

The Nationality Rooms awards scholarships to support undergraduate students' global learning.

Book your visit to the Nationality Rooms and experience the history courtesy of our Quo Vadis tour guides.

• September 4 ‘Nobody is free until everyone is free’: Pitt students, teachers, and community members attend Palestine protest in Schenley Plaza
• September 4 Fully Booked | Best Books I Read This Summer
• September 4 Dave and Andy’s Ice Cream reopening after April closure 
• September 4 Student Government Board addresses campus violence, introduces candidates for vacant position
• September 3 Opinion | Leave Gus Walz Alone
• September 3 Editorial | Pitt Police must do better with emergency notifications
• September 3 Photos: Pitt Volleyball sweeps Buffalo
• September 3 ‘It’s my second home’: Pitt cross-country hosts Panther Opener
• September 3 Photos: SJP hosts the first Pro-Palestine protest of the school year
• September 3 The Pitt News Sports NFL 2024 season take four

The Pitt News

Nationality Room tour guides gain cultural, educational experience

Amaya Lobato | Staff Photographer

Zach Hartman, a computer engineering and classics major, nationality room tour guide and the Quo Vadis president in the Cathedral of Learning’s Polish nationality room on Monday.

By Jessica McKenzie , Senior Staff Writer March 2, 2022

The Polish room in the Cathedral of Learning is packed with intricate artifacts representing the eastern European nation’s culture. The room contains the original handwritten manuscript of “ Manru ,” the first and only Polish opera performed at The Metropolitan Opera in New York. The composer, Ignacy Jan Paderewski , donated the manuscript to the Polish room.

Zach Hartman, a senior computer engineering and classics major, works as a nationality room tour guide and Quo Vadis president. Quo Vadis members serve as tour guides for the Cathedral’s 31 nationality rooms. Currently, there are about 25 tour guides. Hartman said the manuscript is one of the Polish room’s most distinctive artifacts.

“It’s the original handwritten pencil manuscript of the opera,” Hartman said. “[Paderewski] wants us to turn the page every once in a while so that people can read the whole opera after a certain amount of time.”

According to Hartman, then-chancellor John Bowman commissioned the Cathedral when the University moved its campus to Oakland. The Cathedral became Pitt’s iconic homebase, and the nationality rooms program encouraged the people of Pittsburgh to represent their heritages in the building.

“[Bowman] wanted the Cathedral to be part of the community, rather than just isolated to the University,” Hartman said.

Hartman said he attended tour guide training sessions during his first year at Pitt, where he discovered his love for learning about the cultures that the rooms represent.

“I went to a couple of the meetings and started going to trainings just to see what Quo Vadis was all about,” Hartman said. “I just kept coming back because I wanted to learn more and more about every single room — I thought it was a cool way to learn about this aspect of the University that not many people actually look into.”

Quo Vadis members usually complete tour guide training sessions within the span of a semester, during which they learn about every item in each of the nationality rooms. Once students complete training, they get paid for the tours they give.

Guests not affiliated with the University frequently go on the tours, and can choose which nationality rooms to tour when they book the tour online.

Hartman said while interacting with people can be a challenge, working as a tour guide has helped to improve his confidence and public speaking skills.

“I was always terrified of [public speaking] in high school — but once I started learning about all this stuff, I was like, ‘I want to tell people about this,’” Hartman said. “Now I bring people into the rooms and see how excited they are about all of these cool artifacts. I feel like I’m part of something special.”

Lauren Scheller-Wolf, a senior English writing and theater arts major, is the vice president of Quo Vadis. A native Pittsburgher, she said she has admired the nationality rooms since childhood.

“My parents took me on tours of the Nationality Rooms when I was growing up,” Scheller-Wolf said. “When I ended up deciding that I was going to go to Pitt, I knew that [Quo Vadis] was something that I wanted to join and be a part of.”

Scheller-Wolf said some of the most memorable tours she’s given have been tours for people who share the nationality of the room they tour.

“One time I had a really large group that was made up of this Filipino family. We went into the Philippine room , and they were so excited,” Scheller-Wolf said. “They were pointing out different elements of the room as things that they recognized — I love learning new things about the cultures from people on the tours as well.”

Besides interacting with people who come from different cultures, Scheller-Wolf said her favorite time of year to be a nationality room tour guide is the Halloween season. While giving tours, guides dress up in costumes and tell guests spooky folktales from the countries of the rooms they tour.

“Usually the officers will have some sort of group costume. Last year we were ‘Clue’ characters and ‘Winnie the Pooh’ characters,” Scheller-Wolf said. “The guides will present their rooms kind of like you would on a normal tour, and then they’ll tell a scary story from that culture to kind of add in the spooky vibes.”

Michael Walter, the nationality room tour coordinator and supervisor, said although tour guides are supposed to be impartial to all of the rooms, some guides admire a certain room because it represents their family heritage. He said he enjoys the story behind the Lithuanian room because his family is originally from the Baltic state.

“The local Lithuanian committee 一 back in the 1930s 一 worked with the Lithuanian government to sponsor a contest to find an architect in that country to design the room,” Walter said. “A young man [​​Antanas Guidaitis] received the award and commissioned the design of the room and he sent his drawings to Pittsburgh, and they largely followed his drawings exactly.”

According to Walter, the drawings include a darkened wood called bog oak wood, which the local Lithuanian committee spent many years to source . Bog wood originates from a tree in Lithuania that fell into a swamp and remained underwater for many years, causing it to turn very dark and discolored. The wood was very valuable in Lithuania. Linen also covers the walls of the room to indicate the importance of weaving in the country.

Hartman said while the Cathedral is abundant with cultural representation, the University hopes to add more nationality rooms in the future. He said he hopes for unrepresented nations to get rooms.

“We don’t have any Latin American countries represented. I would really love to see one of those get a room,” Hartman said.

Walter said he hopes to attract students from all academic disciplines to work as tour guides. He said working as a tour guide is a rewarding experience because of all that the guides learn, as well as the opportunity to serve the public.

“The rooms are there to bring people to their own epiphanies about cultural studies in their own time,” Walter said. “I think any student who is a tour guide should be proud that they’re representing the University in such a positive light.”

• cathedral of learning
• nationality rooms
• Tour Guides

Jessica McKenzie is a senior majoring in English writing and communication. She is a Stephen King fanatic and avid ukulele player.

Join our newsletter

Get Pitt and Oakland news in your inbox, three times a week.

• Back Issues
• Letters Policy

Volume 55 | ISSUE 8: December 2, 2022

Nationality rooms open again for in-person holiday open house.

A holiday tradition returns on Dec. 4 with the in-person 31st Holiday Open House in the Cathedral of Learning’s Nationality and Heritage Rooms.

The program, sponsored by the Nationality Rooms and Intercultural Exchange Programs, the University Center for International Studies and the committees for the rooms, has been online only during the pandemic.

During the holiday season, however, all but one — the Turkish Room — are decorated to reflect the unique ways each culture celebrates its fall and winter traditions, including Lunar New Year for the Chinese Room and Diwali for the Indian Room.

Members of the Nationality and Heritage Room committees will welcome guests from noon to 4 p.m. Dec. 4 into the rooms decorated for the holiday season. Guests can participate in traditional crafts and cultural demonstrations to learn about the rooms, their ethnic communities and traditions. 

In the Cathedral of Learning Commons, traditional foods and handcrafted cultural items will be for sale as world and holiday plays. St. Nicholas will make an appearance for photos with children and families.     

The event is free and open to the public. Find more information on the Nationality Rooms website .

Guided tours  of the Nationality Rooms are available beginning Friday, Nov. 25; no tours will be held on Nov. 27. Guests must register at least four days in advance to receive a slot. There are no self-guided tours at this time.  Interactive online tours  are also available for those who can’t make it to Pittsburgh.

Pitt Nationality room holiday tours remain virtual this year

The annual Holiday Open House in the historic Nationality Rooms at the University of Pittsburgh has been a holiday tradition for three decades.

But for the second year since the start of the pandemic, that tradition is limited to virtual tours, meaning the rooms can’t even be decorated.

Trying to put a positive spin on the limitations, new Nationality Rooms director Kati Csoman said the virtual format will still allow a fun and educational experience.

“The virtual event will allow visitors to experience more cultural and artistic performances, learn about holiday traditions and food customs, and to listen and watch wonderful children’s stories from around the world,” she said.

The tours will be led by members of Quo Vadis, a student group formed in 1944 to educate the public about the rooms and their features.

A Greek Christmas Trivia Weekend, a performance by the Scottish Balmoral Pipes and Drums Band, and a lesson on making Romanian Sorcovas are also on the agenda.

A Sorcova consists of a stick or twig decorated with different colored artificial flowers. Children use them to playfully tap their parents or acquaintances on their backs on New Year’s morning to wish them, in special verses, good health and good luck.

The festivities and events continue through Dec. 12.

Established in 1926, Pitt’s 31 Nationality Rooms pay tribute to the cultural groups that settled in Allegheny County. They are located on the first and third floors of Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning and are used as functioning classrooms.

Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.

Get Ad-Free >

Sign Up for Notifications

Stay up-to-date on important news from TribLIVE

TribLIVE's Daily and Weekly email newsletters deliver the news you want and information you need, right to your inbox.

Content you may have missed

News spotlight.

• How to Create an Engaging Educational Program for Historical Museums Bradford House Historical Association Partner News
• ACC schools have new path to revenue: Win in postseason TribLive
• Leetsdale food pantry serving more residents than ever TribLive
• Why Bathroom Upgrades Are the Best Investment for Your Home Mt Pleasant Window & Remodeling Co. Partner News
• How to Choose the Right Arborist for Your Tree Care Needs BeaverJack Tree Service, LLC Partner News
• Bills safety Damar Hamlin will start season opener against Cardinals KDKA
• What to watch for in high school sports on Sept. 5, 2024: Allderdice, Perry kick off City League play | Trib HSSN TribHSSN
• What is Artisan Bread? The Breadery Partner News
• What is the Role of Museums in Preserving Local History? Bradford House Historical Association Partner News
• Imanaga, 2 relievers combine for no-hitter, lead Cubs over Pirates 12-0 KDKA

Do you speak Gen-Alpha? Test your ‘skibidi’ knowledge with this vocab quiz

• open search

From the latest big breakthrough to the most influential and inspiring figures on campus to Pitt in the community, Pittwire is your official source for what’s happening now.

• Health and Wellness
• Technology and Science
• Arts and Humanities
• Community Impact
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• Innovation and Research
• Our City/Our Campus
• Pitt Magazine
• Features & Articles
• Accolades & Honors
• Ones to Watch
• Announcements and Updates
• Life at Pitt
• Arts & Sciences
• Computing & Information
• Dental Medicine
• Engineering
• General Studies
• Health & Rehabilitation
• Honors College
• Public & Intl Affairs
• Public Health
• Social Work
• COVID-19 Response
• Sustainability

New leadership for Nationality Rooms

Subscribe to Pittwire Today

Kati Csoman has been named the new director of the Nationality Rooms and Intercultural Exchange Programs at the University of Pittsburgh, effective Aug. 9, 2021.

Csoman (A&S ’89, GSPIA ’96) returns to Pitt from Pennsylvania State University, where she served as associate director for global program innovation and an assistant teaching professor.

As director, Csoman will lead and oversee the operations of Pitt’s beloved 31 museum-quality classrooms, renowned for promoting cross-cultural understanding and celebrating Western Pennsylvania’s ethnic diversity and immigrant heritage. The rooms, tours, student groups and scholarships, faculty grants, cultural and educational outreach programs and events play a distinctive role in the Pitt experience for the community and visitors alike.

“At a time when international education is reenvisioning the field, there is no doubt that Kati’s vision for a communal, creative and critical approach to advancing future projects, programs and activities of the Nationality Rooms will make critical interventions that align with Pitt’s mission and strategic priorities. Our team is excited to welcome Kati to the UCIS family,” said Ariel C. Armony, vice provost for global affairs and director of the University Center for International Studies (UCIS).

Prior to her tenure at Penn State, Csoman served as dean of the Center for International Education at Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. She recently also completed a three-year term on the board of the Association of International Education Administrators. Csoman remains active in the Hungarian American community in the Pittsburgh region and has served as chair and secretary for the Hungarian Room Committee.

As a proud Pitt graduate and a past recipient of a Hungarian Room scholarship, Csoman brings a deep professional and personal commitment to her leadership of the Nationality Rooms, Armony noted. Csoman succeeds E. Maxine Bruhns, who had directed the Nationality Rooms program from 1965 until her death in 2020.

Founded in 1926, the Nationality Rooms were established as a way to partner with the many different ethnic communities in the region. The classrooms, which are designed by committees, are on the first and third floors of the Cathedral of Learning. Tours are currently being held virtually , but the University plans to reinstate in-person tours by appointment only beginning in September.

You can help shape Pitt’s Campus Master Plan

Here’s the latest in campus construction at pitt, connect with your neighbors during pitt’s free block party series.

• The Magazine
• City Journal
• Contributors
• Manhattan Institute
• Email Alerts

Diversity That’s Not Divisive

The University of Pittsburgh’s Nationality Rooms celebrate an ideal often subordinated to today’s identity politics: E pluribus unum.

The fall academic year has already brought to campus renewed anti-Semitic violence. At the University of Pittsburgh, last Friday, a keffiyeh-clad non-student used a broken bottle to slash two Jewish students wearing yarmulkes and what might be termed “walking while Jewish.” The two were able to subdue their attacker until police arrived and arrested him. Such attacks are of a piece with the anti-Zionism of academia and its obsession with identity politics and alleged oppression. As students return to classes at Pitt, history courses will include such choices as Museums as Sites of Contestation, and the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies offerings will include Queering Home: How Trans and African American Spaces Reframe Capitalism.

But a balance to such courses can be seen in the decor of Pitt classrooms—ironically located in the landmark building outside of which the attack on the Jewish students took place. In the school’s towering, Gothic-style Cathedral of Learning, classes will be held in the Nationality Rooms, which include exhibits dating to 1938 that celebrate the cultures of 31 immigrant groups who built the Steel City: Hungarians, Scots, Czechoslovaks, Turks, Lebanese, Norwegians, Germans, English, and more. A student group has provided tours since 1944. The Nationality Rooms provide, per their official description, the “opportunity to engage in learning in a unique setting that helps [students] explore the historic diversity of the Pittsburgh region.”

This is a different kind of diversity than that which we hear so much about today, the tendentious sort that emphasizes ongoing difference and inequality, that asserts that “inclusivity” has fundamentally eluded America. The message of the Nationality Rooms recalls the time when E pluribus unum emphasized the distinct but complementary backgrounds of immigrants and minorities. “In their diversity,” wrote one-time university chancellor Wesley Posvar of the Nationality Rooms, in a guidebook still on sale, “they preserve and honor our ethnic identities. Collectively, they symbolize our national unity.”

Our national culture, in other words, is greater than the sum of its parts—but it is worth celebrating the contributions of those parts. The columns of the Greek room remind us of where democracy first flourished; the carved woodwork and stained glass of the German room celebrate the birthplace of university education, and a coat of arms commends the University of Buda in the Hungarian Room. The Renaissance is recalled in the Italian Room’s red-tile floor replica of Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio. Additions have been made to the rooms honoring Eastern European groups to include Africans, Koreans, Japanese, and Israelis.

“One thing seemed clear in regard to entertaining immigrants,” settlement house pioneer Jane Addams, who led the early twentieth-century movement to assimilate immigrants by teaching them English and preparing them for citizenship, wrote in 1910. “To preserve and keep whatever of value their past life contained and to bring them in contact with a better type of Americans.” The history told in the Nationality Rooms is not one of oppression.

That the Nationalities Rooms are also classrooms stands as a kind of rebuke to current academic fashion. If students knew only the cultural, political, and scientific history on display in these rooms, they would already have learned more than they could from the selective and polemical arguments more commonly given today. One hopes that students absorb a great deal simply through the osmosis that comes with observation.

Indeed, young people were notable among those lining up for tours when I visited on a sweltering day this summer, to see non-air-conditioned rooms on the first floor of the 42-story Cathedral of Learning, still the tallest academic building in the United States.

More rooms have been added over the years; the English room was not added until 1952. Some adjustments would seem to be in order today, however. Israel should, of course, be credited for the Old Testament (represented by a replica of the Dead Sea Scrolls) but the contributions of immigrant Jewish-Americans should not be overlooked. Africa is represented by the courtyard of an Asante temple rather than by the contributions of black Americans, themselves notable in Pittsburgh; consider the plays of August Wilson, many set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, or the career of slugging Josh Gibson of the Negro League’s Pittsburgh Crawfords.

The most important aspects of the Nationalities Room are not the specifics but, rather, the values they embody. They bring to mind the small book my grandmother, a proud Jewish assimilationist, once gave me, entitled Americans All , which informed me that Haym Salomon was the “financier of the Revolution.” The book’s unifying message isn’t heard as often today, but any visitor to the Nationality Rooms would have ample reason to agree with it.

Howard Husock  is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of a forthcoming book on the history of public housing.

Photo: daveynin from United States - Information Kiosk - Nationality Rooms , CC BY 2.0 , Link

City Journal is a publication of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (MI), a leading free-market think tank. Are you interested in supporting the magazine? As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, donations in support of MI and City Journal are fully tax-deductible as provided by law (EIN #13-2912529).

Further Reading

Copyright © 2024 Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

• Eye on the News
• From the Magazine
• Books and Culture
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use

EIN #13-2912529

• Find People

• Press Releases
• Media Reports

PITT'S NATIONALITY ROOMS DECKED FOR HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE AND TOURS

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 22 -- The University of Pittsburgh Nationality Rooms' Holiday Open House will feature entertainers in native costume, ethnic food, craft demonstrations, and tours of the 26 Nationality Rooms on Sunday, Dec. 3, from noon until 4 p.m., in the Cathedral of Learning Commons Room, Oakland. Admission is free.

The rooms will be decked in their holiday finery featuring both Christian and non-Christian holiday traditions such as Kwanza, Chinese New Year, Hanukkah, India's Diwali (festival of lights), and the Japanese Kadomatsu (a good luck omen for the New Year). Ethnic holiday entertainment will include the Chinese Lion Dance, Latin American Salsa dancers, Filipino Tinikling, Indian dancers, Indonesian dancers, Medieval English dancers, and Italian dancers. The performances begin at noon and will run at 15-minute intervals throughout the afternoon. There will be a traditional Japanese tea ceremony at 2 p.m. in Room 324.

Tables will be filled with ethnic foods and crafts for visitors to purchase and enjoy. Bountiful food tables will feature Polish, Indian, Latin American, Indonesian, Japanese, Ukrainian, Austrian, German, and Italian delicacies. Crafts include spinning, bobbin lace-making, origami, and Polish cut-paper ornaments. For more than 40 years, the Nationality Rooms have been decorated by area residents who form the Nationality Room Committees. Student volunteer guides in native dress will welcome guests, conduct tours, and describe the many holiday traditions represented by the 26 Nationality Rooms.

The Nationality Rooms will be decorated in their traditional holiday style beginning Nov. 20. Tours are available throughout the holiday season. The cost of the tours are adults, $3; senior citizens, $2; and children (8-18), $.50. The rooms will be closed on Dec. 24, 25, 31, 2000, and Jan. 1, 2001.

For more information on the open house or tours during the holiday season, call the Nationality Rooms Program at 412-624-6000.

11/22/00/mgc

Media Resources

• Pittwire >

• Contact News Reps  >

• Photos to Download  >

• Video/B-Roll >

Schools of the Health Sciences Media Relations

For more information about Pitt's schools of dental medicine, health and rehabilitation sciences, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and public health, click here >

To locate stories from health science schools prior to 2013, visit the UPMC news archives »

Urgent Question?

University of Pittsburgh news reps are available to answer urgent media inquiries. Outside of regular business hours (Mon-Fri, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m.), please email us at [email protected] .

News reps for University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences schools can be reached outside of regular business hours through the paging operator at 1+412-647-2345 .

Social Media

Rss news from pitt, publications.

• News & Magazines
• Pitt Magazine
• Pitt Med magazine
• University Fact Book
• University Times

Jump to navigation

• Virtual Tour

Cathedral of Learning

The Gothic Revival skyscraper that Pitt Chancellor John G. Bowman commissioned in 1921 inspired local industries to donate steel, cement, elevators, glass, plumbing, and heating elements. Thousands of adults today still have the certificates they received as school children upon contributing 10 cents to “’buy a brick” for the Cathedral.

In addition to its magnificent four-story Commons Room at ground level, the 42-story Cathedral houses classrooms (including the internationally renowned Nationality Classrooms) academic and administrative offices, libraries, computer labs, a theater, a print shop, and a food court.

In 2007, on the 70th anniversary of the Cathedral’s dedication, Pitt trustees approved a project to clean and restore the iconic building. Its interior has since been upgraded and its limestone exterior scrubbed of industrial grime.

A landmark listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the 535-foot-tall Cathedral is the second-tallest educational building in the world after the University of Moscow’s main building. In recent years, families of peregrine falcons have nested atop the Cathedral.