About the Department of Architecture
History
The Department of Architecture was
established in 1910 with a four-year course in Architectural
Engineering; in 1922, a curriculum in architecture was added,
leading to the Bachelor of Science in Architecture.
The enrollment reached a high of 163 in 1930, and dropped to 83 during the Depression years of 1935-36. In 1948, the curriculum changed from a four-year to a five-year program, and the number of students gradually increased from 158 in 1948 to 194 in 1955-56, and reached a total of 256 in 1962.
At one time the department was housed in the College of Engineering and Architecture and managed the departments of art and architectural engineering. In January 1963, the department became part of a newly established College of Arts and Architecture and by 1972 the enrollment in architecture had risen to 480. By instituting a quota of admission in 1972 and by being highly selective in its acceptances, the department since 1975 has remained relatively small and constant in size, thus maintaining an essential personal contact between faculty and students. The department presently enrolls 297 undergraduate students majoring in architecture.
In the fall of 1972, the Department of Architecture initiated the phasing in of a revised 4+2 program in architecture. The revised program became operative in its totality by fall 1976. For various reasons (such as the migration of many of the best students to other schools’ graduate programs), this six-year program was deemed unsuccessful. The faculty of architecture was unanimous in its opinion that the reintroduction of the fifth year of intensive professional studies would provide the appropriate knowledge and the desired skills. The reinstatement of the fifth professional year at Penn State occurred in March 1979, and the five-year B.Arch. remains our present structure today.
The five-year professional undergraduate program (Bachelor of Architecture degree), requiring a total of 162 credits, includes core courses in design, technology, and theory, and admission requirements are based on overall academic performance and demonstrated professional maturity.
Until 1997 the department offered the four-year, 135-credit pre-professional program (Bachelor of Science degree), with options enabling students to "spin off" from the core program at the end of the third year. While this optional spin-off has been eliminated, the department continues to offer the four-year, 135-credit pre-professional program for those students that either choose not to enter the fifth year, or are deemed ineligible because of academic performance.
The two-year graduate professional program was officially dropped in the fall of 1983. The post-professional graduate program for the Master of Science degree was retained. In 2002, the faculty chose to move the graduate program to a post-professional Master of Architecture with these areas of interest: Architectural Theory, Community and Urban Design, and Digital Design.
For decades, the department offered study abroad opportunities with programs in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Florence, Italy. In 1991, the department consolidated these options, moving the program to Rome and making it a requirement for all of our fourth-year students to spend a full semester there. In 1992, the department negotiated a long-term lease for instructional facilities within the Palazzo Doria Pamphili, in the center of Rome. Our facilities there include multiple studio spaces, classrooms, a library, a computer lab, and administrative support areas. Click here for more information about Sede di Roma.
In 1994, the Raymond A. Bowers Program for Excellence in Design and Construction of the Built Environment was initiated from an endowed fund to support interdisciplinary cooperation between the departments of architecture, landscape architecture, and architectural engineering. Presently, the Bowers Program receives proposals annually that show support for the intentions of the endowment by way of research projects or class instruction. In recent years, the Bowers Program has provided “seed” financial support for projects such as our American Indian Housing Initiative, an architectural lighting laboratory, and other similar interdisciplinary projects.
The School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA) was established in 1997 with the intent to encourage further cooperation and joint efforts between the departments of architecture and landscape architecture. Administratively, the Department of Architecture reports directly to the dean of the College of Arts and Architecture; however, SALA functions as an umbrella for interdepartmental issues and is governed by a School Council composed of an equivalent number of faculty members from each department.
Two centers were established within SALA through committed endowment funds. The Hamer Center for Community Design Assistance began operation in January 1999 and offers design assistance to communities and planning agencies in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Stuckeman Center for Design Computing, established in the summer of 1998, is the expansion of the existing design computing center, and provides management of the design computing operations and instruction within the two departments of architecture and landscape architecture.