By Christine Haines
Growing up in Pittsburgh, I spent a lot of time roaming around Oakland as a teen, exploring the Carnegie Museum, the Oakland branch of the Carnegie Library and the Nationality Rooms in the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh.
Those sites continue to hold a fascination for me, though I get to them much less frequently since I’ve moved out of the city and I am no longer dependent on public transportation to get around (when you use public transit, you don’t need to worry about finding a parking space in Oakland!)
The Christmas holiday season is probably the best time to see the Nationality Rooms. Not only are they decorated for the holidays (November through January) in the manner of the country represented, there are fewer university students around, so it’s easier to find a parking space.
There are currently 26 rooms representing nations around the world from the 5th century BC through the 19th century AD.
The rooms are open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., and Sundays from 11 a.m. until 4, with the last tour offered each day at 2:30 p.m. the rooms are closed on Thanksgiving Day, Dec. 24-26, and Jan. 1. Guided tours are offered without reservations the day after Thanksgiving and Dec. 27-31, with tours leaving the information center in the Cathedral of Learning from 10:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m.
I’ve always opted for the self-guided tour, though since the rooms are also active classrooms, you can miss a lot that way. The information center offers a booklet with brief descriptions of the rooms and cassette tapes of the tour are available on weekends and daily May through August.
The rooms offer impressive architecture in a wide variety of styles from an ancient stone dwelling from the 1st century A.D. in the room depicting Israel to the monastic architecture from 4th-9th century India and the 19th French Empire architecture.
Many of the rooms, including the Armenian and Indian rooms, feature intricate woodcarving on the doors, walls or furniture. The Indian and Austrian rooms boast detailed paintings on the walls or ceilings. Of course, the Austrian room also has a beautiful crystal chandelier and, for Christmas, a display dedicated to the composition of “Silent Night, Holy Night.”
The Nationality rooms are located on the first and third floors of the Cathedral of Learning on the University of Pittsburgh campus. First floor rooms include the English, French, Norwegian, Russian, Italian, German and Hungarian rooms, as well as the Polish, Irish, Lithuanian, Romanian, Swedish, Chinese, Scottish and Yugoslavian rooms. The third floor features the Indian, Early American, African, Israel, Ukranian, Austrian, Japanese and Armenian rooms. Still in planning stages are the Swiss, Danish, Latin American/Caribbean, Philippine, Finnish, Thai, Welsh and Turkish rooms.
Gift items representative of the many cultures are available at the information center on the first floor and for visitors who may want to expand their intercultural experience, restaurants featuring foods from the various cultures can be found in the nearby Oakland and Squirrel Hill areas.
For more information about the Nationality Rooms, including a virtual tour, lcheck their Website at http://www.pitt.edu/~natrooms/.
Send your travel and vacation experiences and photos to chris@howyouspinit.com.
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