Pitt dedicates new Nationality Room

The Cathedral of Learning now features 27 Nationality Rooms, the newest addition being a… The Cathedral of Learning now features 27 Nationality Rooms, the newest addition being a Welsh-themed classroom that opened Sunday.

Touring onlookers got a first glance of the room, which imitates an 18th century Welsh chapel, as those involved with the creation of the room attended a by-invitation-only event in the Heinz Memorial Chapel at 3 p.m.

“It was pretty emotional for these people who had worked so hard and suddenly now could see they’d succeeded,” said Nationality Rooms Program Director Maxine Bruhns.

While an overflowing crowd of more than 500 people enjoyed Welsh tenor Kenneth Davies and listened to committee member speakers, Megan Klingensmith, a Nationality Rooms tour guide, greeted visitors inside the Cathedral’s very own piece of Wales.

“Today I’m in traditional Welsh dress that you could find in a 1700s chapel,” Klingensmith said, displaying her long dress, wool wrap and an early version of the top hat.

She answered questions as clusters of people walked about the Welsh-inspired room, patterned after the converted barn Penrhiw Chapel found near Cardiff, Wales.

The Welsh Room, located in room 342, includes columnar beams, milky walls and a door with wrought-iron hinges.

Artifacts are displayed in a case and include a Welsh hymnal, pottery, kitchen equipment and a metal plaque inscribed in Welsh.

Other furnishings include a raised pulpit with a deacon’s bench on either side, boxed pews for student seating and a communion table to be used by professors.

An oak clock, one of the most important items found in a Welsh home, is expected to arrive and be placed opposite the door in the next few weeks.

“The Welsh wanted their own church, even if it was in a barn. They wanted to worship in their own way,” said Bruhns. “[Penrhiw] Chapel said this in a very plain and unpretentious way.”

The concept committee passed on manor house and castle themes and opted for the chapel design because of its importance to community life in rural 18th century Wales.

Chapels were not just places of worship but also centers of village social life and where people learned to read and write the language.

“It’s a simple and austere copy of a 1700s Welsh chapel,” said St. David’s Society’s president Dave Williams. “And it turned out exactly how we pictured it.”

Pittsburgh’s St. David’s Society members made up the Welsh Room committee, the organization devoted to memorializing its Welsh heritage. They proposed the idea of a new Nationality Room in 2001.

Between then and now, the committee was the first to raise funds, design, construct and dedicate a Nationality classroom in seven years. It was only the second room to be dedicated in this millennium.

Williams noted his organization’s drive to raise funds and plan in order to create something that was very important to the heart of St. David Society’s memorializing cause.

“The room is a permanent tribute to our heritage,” said Williams.