Welsh Nationality Room at the Cathedral of Learning
Pittsburgh, PA

Size: 700 square feet

Services: Architecture, Interior Design

The Welsh Nationality Room at the Cathedral of Learning, reflecting a need for a lasting witness to Welsh history and heritage in the Pittsburgh region, takes its cues from a rich personal architectural culture of Welsh chapels, or capels.

Preliminary schematic sketches for the room were drawn from the interior of a 1787-era Welsh chapel. These chapels would traditionally have been in a "long house" with wooden pews and a pulpit at one end of the structure and the pastor’s living quarters at the other end.

The domestic-looking long-wall façade which had been adopted by the eighteenth-century meeting-houses was retained. The pulpit was placed centrally in the wall between symmetrically placed pairs of doors and windows.

Of special note for the Welsh Nationality Room is an original, Welsh made, 30-hour longcase clock with square painted clock face circa 1790 in an oak case.