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Welcome to the virtual presence of the School of Architecture in the electronic world! I hope the pages that we included here provide you the information you are seeking, perhaps as a new visitor wanting to join our student community next academic year, or a repeat visitor –may be one of the thousands of the proud alumni we have everywhere or a good friend of the school wondering what is new in our midst –in Cheever or Romney Halls, among our faculty, staff, and students. Welcome!
The School of Architecture sees its mission as preparing students for the lifelong critical engagement in the arts and science of architecture. Our academic community believes that knowing how to build is a matter of science and technology but knowing what to build is a question of morality, ethics, and aesthetic responsibility. Thus we, the faculty, dedicate our academic efforts to teaching and practicing along the ever so important responsibility to society and the natural world in the design of the built environment. To this end, we strive to empower our students to assume leadership roles in the synthesis of human activity, place, materials, systems, theories and methods from critical, responsible, and mature perspectives. Concurrently, we strive to support the faculty in the active engagement of creative and research activities that advance the mission of the school and the university.
In the photograph below you see me standing in front of a mural we have on one of the walls in our studios. It says “Architecture Matters”! Though the date on the mural is not visible in the photograph, many alumni and friends remember it well: December 6, 1986. The mural commemorates a very important event in the long history of the School: Our Community’s triumph in preventing the closure of the school at Montana State University. Though it is almost 13 years since then, the spirit that united the students, faculty, and friends of the school and resulted in halting the then university administrator’s push, is still alive in our community. It is that “can do spirit”. Lately it is being redefined with terms such as visualization, craft, and stewardship, which are being developed as realms of emphasis in our undergraduate and graduate curricula as well as in our scholarship and engagement with our context. Soon we will share the outcomes of our debates on these on pages that follow, so please visit this site often!
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