JS
Jonathan Schmidt
  • Anthropology
  • Plymouth, MN

Iowa State students study historic preservation and planning in Stockholm

2018 Apr 17

Fourteen Iowa State University students from a variety of majors traveled to Stockholm, Sweden, over spring break in March to work on a history and planning project involving the US Embassy. The project was part of the ISU/US Department of State Cultural Heritage Documentation project, a unique partnership between the ISU College of Design and the US Department of State Office of Cultural Heritage.

Under the direction of Ted Grevstad-Nordbrock, an Iowa State assistant professor of community and regional planning, students toured the embassy and learned about its design, its role in the history of US diplomacy, its place in the Swedish capital's urban fabric and its future as the primary physical link between the governments of the US and Sweden.

They worked with a diverse group of American and Swedish experts and peers -- including US Department of State staff from both Washington, DC, and Stockholm; students and faculty at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, and architects and historians from the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office -- to develop a new vision for the embassy building, one that respects its history but also meets the geopolitical, urban design and security requirements of today.

The remainder of the trip, the students met with city and county government officials, urban planners and historians, and local heritage and eco groups to learn more about their planning processes and development trends. And they visited museums and explored the city.

The goal now is for students to take the arguments they've developed for why the US Embassy in Stockholm is historically significant and share them online through Story Map or via international preservation groups such as Docomomo.

Student participants in this interdisciplinary study abroad program are majoring in community and regional planning, art and design, advertising, anthropology, environmental studies, international studies, landscape architecture, physics and technical communication. The group included:

Jonathan Schmidt, Plymouth, MN 55441, Anthropology