Architectural Travels with SIU

By Russ Baker


Being predominantly visual learners, students in the SIU architecture program have traveled the world in the years past to experience first-hand many architectural wonders and phenomena. During my undergraduate studies, I have been fortunate enough to participate in many of these trips, including a month long tour of Italy and Greece with Professor Jon Davey.

Among some of the cities we visited were Athens, Bologna, Capri, Corfu, Delos, Delphi, Florence, Glyfada, Mykonos, Napoli, Ostia, Pompeii, Ravenna, Rome, Santorini, Sienna, Sounio, Tivoli, and Venice. We were able to visit the Parthenon, Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Vatican, the Osios Loukas Monastery, Mt. Vesuvius, and I literally could go on and on. We were always on the go, and the trip was well worth the time and money.

Also accompanied by professor Davey, I ventured to Egypt to see the great pyramids, among many other things, and take a three day cruise of the Nile. We visited Aswan, Cairo, Kom-Ombo, and Luxor, with a relaxing 1 day layover in Chicago, another in New York City, and a short stop in London. Aside from the pyramids in Egypt, we visited the Aswan Dam, the Unfinished Obelisk, the Egyptian Museum, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, the Temple of Luxor, many ancient ruins, several small villages, and a quick climb up sandy hill at the beginning of the Sahara Desert (as seen in the photo).

With Professor Yeshayahu and his wife, Professor Vera, I traveled to Los Angeles, CA for a week trip during spring break. In L.A. we stayed in a hotel on Venice Beach and toured several museums and architecturally distinct homes, as well as the Disney Concert Hall and an architecture graduate school to see many interesting and inspiring projects.

I also went to Montreal, Canada for a week in 2009 with Professor Craig Anz as a precedent study in an Urban Design course. Here, we studied the layout of the city, visited several museums, including the Museum of Contemporary Arts, and a film festival.


Other places I have traveled to with the SIU School of Architecture include Falling Water and Kentucky Knob in Pennsylvania, several cities in Illinois, and many others. If you like to travel and see new places and structures and happen to want to be an architect, this program might be perfect for you. In addition to these trips, architecture students often take trips of their own to visit and analyze sites for their projects. It is very refreshing and educational to get out of the classroom and travel to foreign places to see so many interesting, historic, and inspirational works of art and architecture.