Now in my third year as Head of the Department of Architecture at MIT, I have come to understand architecture, well, as M. I. T.

M for Materiality
I for Intelligence and Information
T for Technology

Materiality is of paramount importance since I see that the foundations of architecture, as a body of knowledge, are anchored in and generated from its physicality and tangibility. The emphasis on materiality also means that we should build our curriculum around practice.

While our faculty may or may not agree with me and we will constantly debate about architecture and education, the Architecture Department of MIT is going through tremendous changes: Rahul Mehrotra and Nader Tehrani, two reputed practitioners and educators of architecture, have joined our faculty this fall term as tenured associate professors along with a number of exciting young teachers. Also in Fall 2007, a new curriculum for the Master of Architecture program is being implemented. In Spring and Fall 2008, we will welcome additional new regular faculty members and our other degree programs will be reexamined and refined. As the oldest department of architecture in the United States, we are on our way to become one of the youngest.

Meanwhile, we intend to actively develop diversity and interdisciplinarity, a trademark of our department, and further integrate the discipline groups within the department: building technology, computation, design (including urbanism), history theory and criticism, and visual arts. As always, we will maintain a highly international faculty as well as student body. With our students and faculty, we are building programs around global agendas and continue to pursue design/research activities in many parts of the world.   More detail...