BA in Architectural Studies at University of Illinois At Chicago

The College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts is a unique group of schools and affiliated units dedicated to the investigation, creation, and interpretation of our physical, social, and sensory environments. With degree programs in the visual arts, design, theatre and music, architecture, and art history, the college is the only place in Chicago where one can prepare for a career in the arts and design within a major research university. The college is home to an energetic, award-winning faculty of practicing architects, artists, designers, museum professionals, art historians, musicians, directors, and theatrical performers. Through their instruction and ongoing research, the faculty introduces students to disciplinary and professional themes of contemporary importance and fosters a vibrant atmosphere of intellectual and creative inquiry.

The College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts is a leader in visual and performing arts and design education and research in the city of Chicago, the nation, and the world. The college considers its location in Chicago—a world-class cultural center, and a site of complex social realities—a primary asset. It has developed partnerships with significant local museums, theaters, firms, and other cultural institutions, as well as collaborations with a wide range of programs across the university. UIC’s status as an urban public institution drives the college’s interest in engaging urban issues and providing access to excellence in the arts and design to diverse audiences.

From this setting, the college also advances a global agenda: to break ground in the arts and arts research and to generate new knowledge, informed by both historical precedent and the use of new technologies for expression and instruction. The College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts extends the traditional boundaries of research and practice in order to meet the challenges of a changing economy. Faculty and students alike realize that the next generation of graduates must be equipped to operate creatively and knowledgeably in a broadening cultural arena and to think with an international perspective. To that end, the college has attracted a number of internationally recognized faculty and developed student exchange programs in Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, The Netherlands, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, and Switzerland.

The College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts is comprised of the School of Architecture, the School of Art & Art History, the School of Design, and the School of Theatre & Music, as well as the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, a National Historic Landmark and museum committed to social justice, and Gallery 400, a dynamic, cutting edge contemporary art gallery. Curricula are offered in architecture, art, art history, design, interdisciplinary education in the arts, and theatre and music, leading to the baccalaureate in those fields. The core of the architecture programs is the intensive development of design work and ideas in the studio, supported by courses in architectural theory and technology. Art and art history emphasize social and global awareness and contemporary conceptual inquiry through both visual and scholarly production. Located in the School of Art & Art History, the IDEAS (Interdisciplinary Education in the Arts) BA offers students a degree linking all the arts through practice-based learning with an emphasis on emerging technology. Design programs develop sophisticated form-making skills in order to produce designers adept at formulating and advocating ideas. The School of Theatre & Music provides innovative, rigorous, and comprehensive academic and performance programs as part of its diverse, urban context.

All work submitted by students for credit in any course in the college belongs to the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois; the university reserves the right to retain, copyright, use, exhibit, reproduce, and publish any work so submitted.