Architecture serves as building block for study Vol. Architecture serves as building block for study Children in Wilmington learned about architecture this summer in an enrichment program called Building Blocks, taught by art history graduate student Jeff Klee. A former middle school teacher and a grant writer, Cooper works with the Latin American Community Center, the Peoples Settlement and other organizations, and she said she is impressed by these buildings and the old neighborhoods . The wife of Stuart Cooper, engineering, she talked with Damie Stillman, art history, at a faculty function and sounded him out about her ideas. He was enthusiastic and assembled a volunteer committee to further the program as an art history outreach project.
Architecture is a wonderful field for children to study.
It involves several disciplines from art and history to engineering and math. Taught by graduate student Jeff Klee with help from Cooper, Building Blocks was held on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, last summer, for about 20 children ranging in age from 7 to the early teens. Klee, who has a degree in architecture from Yale and is experienced in the field, started each session with a slide lecture on architecture, beginning with the pyramids and ending with skyscrapers. He also introduced the children to different architects from Thomas Jefferson to Paul Revere Williams, an African-American architect who designed homes for movie stars in the 1930s, and Julia Morgan, who helped design the Hearst extravaganza, San Simeon. There also were slide shows of Wilmington buildings and a visit to Christ Our King Church to observe its architectural features.