Mission and History

Mission of the Salvadori Center

Our founder, Mario Salvadori, a world-renowned structural engineer, believed that the built environment held all the knowledge that a person needed to be an intelligent and active member of the community. What teachers need to make this knowledge available to their students are tools with which they can "unpack" the knowledge embedded in the built environment.

The Salvadori Center gives these tools to teachers and students through a pedagogy grounded in what it calls "project-based, hands-on/minds-on activities" that employ the principles of architecture, engineering, and the design process. Through this method, teachers and their students can unlock the math, science, art, and humanities embodied in the structures and systems that surround them.

History

In 1976, Columbia University Professor Mario Salvadori (1907-1997) took up a challenge from the New York Academy of Sciences to do something to improve the teaching of math and science in our middle schools. He volunteered to go into the inner-city middle schools to teach a course based on his book, Why Buildings Stand Up, engaging students in "real world" design and construction activities. His pupils were so responsive and their teachers and administrators so impressed that in 1987 he founded the Salvadori Educational Center on the Built Environment, now the Salvadori Center.

As the Center grew, it expanded beyond the classroom with special projects like the construction of a 40-foot model of the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge in Bryant Park, the Model of Manhattan for the New York Hall of Science, and the construction of the skate-boarding facility at Riverside Park. In 1993, the Salvadori Middle School Program (SMSP) became the Salvadori On-Site Program (SOSP), designed to provide teachers with professional development in the Salvadori method and to place Salvadori architect-educators in the classrooms to mentor and support those very same teachers.

As part of a continuous evolution in programming to meet current educational needs, the Center has re-formed SOSP into The GLOBE Program (Guided Learning through Our Built Environment) and The LEAD Program (Learning through Engineering, Architecture, and Design), both of which are explained in more detail in the Programs section. These two new ventures, along with our continuing work in professional development and after-school programing, will help the Center build more stable relationships with participating schools as well as extend the reach and "visibility" of its programming.

See it. Build it. Know it.