The Chautauqua Institution

Format
Brief

City
Chautauqua

State/Province
NY

Country
USA

Project Type
District/Corridor/Community

Location Type
Small Town/Rural

Land Uses
Cultural Use
Education
Mixed Residential
Recreation
Religious Use

Keywords
Cultural programming
Historic town
Pedestrian-oriented development
ULI Awards for Excellence 2005 Winner

Site Size
600 acres
acres hectares

A brief is a short version of a case study.

If the physical archetype for traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs) in the United States is colonial Charleston, Savannah, or Annapolis, the holistic prototype has always been Chautauqua. Founded in 1874 on Lake Chautauqua in southwestern New York state by two Methodist ministers as a summer retreat for Sunday-school teachers, it has grown to be ecumenical in its religious, cultural, educational, and recreational programs, and it has grown in size as well, from 129 acres (52 ha) at the beginning to 600 acres (243 ha) today. “Chautauqua,” a Seneca word meaning “one has taken the ﬁsh out there,” soon came to mean leisure time adult education with a somewhat evangelistic but nondenominational fervor, and today it means, more broadly, a retreat from daily life for reﬂection, discussion, and instruction in the company of like-minded people.

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Sponsor
The Chautauqua Institution
Chautauqua, NY

Consultants
EDAW, Inc.
San Francisco, CA

H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture, LLC
New York, NY

Urban Design Associates
Pittsburgh, PA

Mitchell P. Kurtz Architects
New York, NY

Permar, Inc.
Charleston, SC

Principal Author
David Taksuye

ULI Awards for Excellence 2005 Winner