Detailed Course Information

“Cleveland: The Renaissance City,” will be based largely on my work as an architectural photographer and local history author over the past two decades and my experience in Cleveland over the past seventy-five years. It will include my photography with stories of the time.

Week 1 will serve as an introduction to the course and to Cleveland’s growth to the fifth largest population with the fifth largest industrial output in the nation, before declining to fifty-third in population today. We will discuss the role of adaptive reuse in Cleveland’s renaissance and explore notable examples. I will read the first two sections of Shattered Dreams Revisited.

Weeks 2-5 will focus on the adaptive reuse of Saint Luke’s Hospital, the Cleveland Trust complex, Public Square and the Cuyahoga County Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument and Warner & Swasey and their importance in the renaissance of the city.

As a change of pace, week 6 will tell the story of the Van Sweringen brothers and the role they played in the story of Cleveland.