The architecture major is built on a mix of both studio and art history courses. The art history courses examine the interrelated artistic, historic, and cultural forces that create architecture and the built environment. Likewise, the studios explore the built environment "as a person experiences it," integrating traditionally separate aspects of landscape and architecture, building and city in the active "laboratory" of the design studio.
The major serves multiple audiences, and stems from the premise that the built world is shaped by many different people. One audience is those students who want to become design professionals—architects, landscape architects, and urban designers and planners. For them the major aims to provide a rigorous and creative base for graduate study. The other audience is equally important; these are the students who will go on to become doctors, politicians, academics, lawyers, or members of neighborhood design review boards. All students will eventually play a significant role in shaping our built environment, no matter what career path they choose.
It is recommended that architecture majors fulfill the 100-level art history requirement in the first year and begin the architecture studios in the second year, especially if they are planning to go abroad. Students planning to major in architecture will find courses in drawing, philosophy, literature, history and landscape studies taken in the first two years valuable.
A fee for basic class materials is charged in all studio courses. The individual student is responsible for the purchase of any additional supplies she may require. All studio courses require extensive work beyond the six scheduled class hours. Please note that all studio courses have limited enrollments.
Advisers
Brigitte Buettner, John Davis, Laura Kalba, Barbara Kellum, Dana Leibsohn, Jim Middlebrook, John Moore, Frazer Ward
Requirements
12 courses, which will include:
- Two 100-level courses selected from two of the following categories:
- Colloquia (ARH 101)
- Non-western survey (ARH 120 or 150)
- Western survey (ARH 140)
- ARS 163, 283, 285, and 388 (or their equivalent)
- One other upper-level course in three-dimensional architectural design, such as ARS 386.
- One studio course in another medium.
- Three 200-level courses in history of art that focus on architectural monuments, urban environments, or spatial experience. Students must take one course in at least two areas of study (Groups I-III). For 2011-2012, the 200-level courses that focus on architecture are for the Fall semester: ARH 216, 264. For the Spring semester: ARH 204, 232.
- One seminar in the history of art normally taken at Smith, with the research paper written on an architectural topic.
Students who contemplate attending a graduate program in architecture should take one year of physics and at least one semester of calculus.
