Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
American urban planning school
The A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning (abbreviated as Taubman College) is the college of architecture and urban planning of the University of Michigan, located in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The college offers the following degrees: Bachelor of Science in Architecture, Bachelor of Science in Urban Technology, Master of Architecture, Master of Science in Architecture: Advanced Design and Construction, Master of Urban and Regional Planning, Master of Urban Design, and PhD programs in Architecture and Urban and Regional Planning.
Originally a degree program established in 1906 within the Department of Engineering, it became the College of Architecture in 1931 and renamed the College of Architecture and Design in 1939. In 1974, the college was separated into the College of Architecture and Urban Planning and the School of Art and Design. The former was renamed after A. Alfred Taubman for his US$30 million donation to the college in May 1999. The gift was one of the largest in the history of the University of Michigan and the largest ever to a school of architecture.
History
In 1876, the University of Michigan became one of the first universities in the United States to offer courses in architecture, led by influential Chicago architect William Le Baron Jenney. After thirty years, a degree program within the Department of Engineering was established in 1906, under the direction of Emil Lorch, who served to administer the program and its ever-evolving iterations until 1937. Housed in what is now Lorch Hall on Central Campus, the program quickly grew into the Department of Architecture by 1913. In 1923, world-renowned architect Eliel Saarinen joined the faculty of the department, with which he was associated during his design, construction, and subsequent presidency of the Cranbrook Academy of Art.
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