History of the School

In 1817, Thomas Jefferson proposed an idea that he had conceived as early as 1781 that the study of Architecture and the Fine Arts be included in the curriculum of the University of Virginia. Architecture as a course of study was to be placed in the School of Mathematics, and the Lawn, with its various orders of classical architecture, was to serve as an instructional model for the student body. It was not until 1919, however, that a School of Fine Arts was established by a gift by Paul G. McIntire. That fall, Dr. Sidney Fiske Kimball, architect, historian, and authority on Jeffersonian architecture, was appointed professor and head with Stanislaw Makielski as Instructor in Architecture. The School provided a B.S. in Architecture degree and graduate architectural coursework. Initially there were eleven students housed in Hotel E on the Range. The Alpha Rho Chi architectural fraternity was established in 1922, and the School graduated its first students in June of 1923.

The successor to Kimball as head of the School was Joseph Hudnut, who had taught art history courses during the summer of 1920 and was an expert on Georgian architecture. During his tenure, the School was moved to Fayerweather Hall, and a cooperative program with Harvard University was instituted whereby graduates of Virginia could obtain a Master of Architecture degree after two years instead of the more common four. Enrollment increased to 263 students in the 1925-26 session. The third architect to direct the School was Alfred Lawrence Kocher. He, like Hudnut, was a scholar of American architecture who later embraced modernism.

In 1928, Edmund S. Campbell, Dean of the Beaux Arts Institute of Design in New York, was appointed head of the School. The five-year professional degree program was started in 1949. In 1953, Thomas K. Fitzpatrick was named Dean upon Campbell’s death. Architecture was separated from Art in 1954. Preservation studies were emphasized, and the Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture and Professorship were co-founded with the Thomas Jefferson Foundation to bring leading scholars and architects to the School.

In 1966, J. Norwood Bosserman was named Dean of the School of Architecture. A new building, Campbell Hall, was completed in 1970, and programs in Architecture, Architectural History, Landscape Architecture, and Urban and Environmental Planning were formalized. In the same year, the University embraced co-education, and the first female students were admitted to the School. With a new facility and four strong departments, enrollment grew to 550 students with over 60 faculty members.

In 1980, Jaquelin T. Robertson was appointed Dean. The Institute for Environmental Negotiation, affiliated with the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning, was established in 1981. Subsequently, a certificate program in Historic Preservation was initiated that engages students from all the school’s disciplines, and in 1988 a Ph.D. program in Architectural History admitted its first students.

Following Robertson’s retirement in 1988, Harry W. Porter, Jr. was named Interim Dean; he was appointed Dean in 1989. His tenure saw further expansion of the influence of the School of Architecture, both within the University and nationally. Daphne Spain was appointed Acting Dean in January, 1994, with William A. McDonough becoming Dean in September, 1994. His emphasis on sustainable development resonated with similar interests in green approaches among a number of faculty.

Karen Van Lengen, a practicing architect from New York, and Chair of the Department of Architecture at the Parsons School of Design, was appointed Dean of the School of Architecture in July, 1999. In 2003, the Department of Architecture joined with the Department of Landscape Architecture with the goal to develop new approaches to the construction of the contemporary built environment. Van Lengen has overseen the fundraising and design development for substantial additions to Campbell Hall designed by members of the School’s faculty. This new facility will be occupied in the summer of 2008.