Best Graduate Programs in Architecture - Updated 2022

Architecture is understood as a cultural practice involving both speculative intelligence and practical know-how. The five-year doctoral program focuses on the history, theory, and criticism of architecture, urbanism, landscape, and building technology. The approach is interdisciplinary, covering a broad range of research interests from an architectural perspective.

A candidate will be recommended for the Master in Architecture II as a post-professional degree upon satisfactory completion of a minimum of 80 units. A minimum of 2 option studios taken over the course of a student program must be offered by the Architecture.

This seminar concentrates on issues that influence the way modern buildings and their architects are perceived by critics, scholars, and the public. The careers of such architects as Frank Lloyd Wright, Eero Saarinen, Louis Kahn, Philip Johnson, Robert Venturi, and Frank Gehry provide a framework for the examination of how patronage, fashion, social change, theory, finance, and politics affect the place of prominent designers and their work in the historical record. Readings include such critics as Lewis Mumford, Ada Louise Huxtable, Blair Kamin, Christopher Hawthorne, Michael Kimmelman, and Martin Filler.

Program requirements for students admitted for Fall 2017 and later. The Master of Architecture is a comprehensive and rigorous program, preparing graduates for the full range of activities in the profession. An intensive sequence in Design Studios constitutes the focus of the program. Thorough training is also provided in history, theory, technology, ecology, society, and professional practice.

Sam Fox School of Design Visual Arts architecture students can earn a MArch degree and an MCM degree in considerably less time than pursuing each degree separately. In this joint program, the School of Architecture accepts nine credit units earned in the McKelvey School of Engineering toward the MArch degree. In the same way, the McKelvey School of Engineering accepts nine credit units earned in Architecture toward the MCM degree, as long as the MCM degree is finished at the same time or immediately following the MArch degree. Acceptance to the Sam Fox School Master of Architecture.

Cornell's professional Master of Architecture (M.Arch.) program uniquely engages global practices through a foundation in making and conceptual thinking. Its close community of talented and dedicated students and faculty work together to push the boundaries of the discipline. The fully accredited M.Arch. program is a three-and-one-half-year course of study dedicated to preparing graduate students from diverse disciplines and backgrounds for careers in architecture.

It acknowledges that the core values that inform its understanding of what constitutes good architecture and urbanism are universal and have been adapted to a wide variety of cultures, material palettes, and climates across time. Students seeking a two-year Master of Architectural Design and Urbanism post-professional degree must hold an accredited professional degree in architecture or the international equivalent. This degree offers students with a professional degree an opportunity to further develop their design and critical thinking skills in the disciplines of classical and traditional architecture and urban design.

Students in the Department of History of Art and Architecture are able to study in a wide array of areas including ancient, medieval, early modern (Renaissance, 17th and 18th centuries), modern, contemporary, East Asian, African and Latin American art and architecture, and history of photography. The department's faculty consists of historians of the major periods of Western, African and East Asian art and architecture, representing a broad spectrum of the discipline's methodologies and specialties.

Innovate the knowledge and practice of architecture through advanced critical thinking, experimentation, and research. Develop or augment a comprehensive understanding of architectural practice and foster the development of innovative forms of practice at a level commensurate with advanced study. The MArch degree can be either a thesis or a non-thesis master degree depending on the option the student pursues.

The M.Arch is a three-year, NAAB-accredited program that leads to a Master of Architecture degree. The M.Arch. curriculum prepares students for the practice of architecture by providing a focused framing of today’s cultural, ecological, political, and technological questions with a view to what architects may bring to bear on such complex issues.