The Architecture Building, shown here through a fish-eye lens, was built in 1963 to house the School of Architecture. The building includes undergraduate and graduate design studios, Betts Auditorium, an exhibition gallery, the School of Architecture Library and the Computer-Aided Design and Imaging Facility.
Photo: John Jameson
Princeton's School of Architecture
engages students in contemporary and emerging issues in architecture
through teaching and research in design, history and theory.
Founded in 1919, the school's roots reach back to 1832, when Professor Joseph Henry, an amateur architect and scientist, taught a course on the history of architecture. Today's students benefit from interactions with leading faculty members, an interdisciplinary focus and a curriculum that is responsive to changes in the profession and in architectural education.
The School of Architecture remains committed to its original goals: providing undergraduates with a well-rounded liberal arts education and a strong basis for additional studies in architecture, while offering graduate students a comprehensive education in design, technology and the history and theories of architecture.
The school enrolls approximately 120 students in bachelor's, master's and doctoral degree programs. The master's program is intended for students who plan to practice architecture professionally, emphasizing design expertise in the context of architectural scholarship. Architecture is approached as a cultural practice, with an emphasis on the pivotal role the architect plays in the development and construction of buildings, cities and landscapes. The four-year doctoral program, which is intended for students who plan to teach architecture, stresses the relationship of architecture, urbanism, landscape and building technologies to their cultural, social and political settings.
"At Princeton, we are confident that our long history of a productive dialogue between academic research and practical design work will produce a new generation of architects prepared to transform our complex world in previously unimagined ways," Dean Stan Allen
writes on the school's Web site. Allen, who earned a master's degree from the school in 1988, returned as its dean in 2002.
Most of the school's facilities are housed in the Architecture Building, which includes undergraduate and graduate design studios, Betts Auditorium, an exhibition gallery, the School of Architecture Library and the Computer-Aided Design and Imaging Facility. Additional facilities for work related to building and construction technologies are located in the Architecture Laboratory, a facility separate from the Architecture Building.
