The Master of Science in Architecture (MSArch) degree is a one-year, two-semester program designed for students who already hold a professional degree in architecture (Bachelor of Architecture or Master of Architecture), or its international equivalent.
The MSArch consists of studio-centered work in architecture and urban design supported by elective coursework in advanced technology and contemporary theory and criticism. This program is an intensive course of study intended to further students' critical skills and analytical abilities while expanding their architectural expertise.
Extrapolating from its context of an urban public research university in Chicago, the School explores how the discipline of architecture might contribute to conditioning the metropolis, constructing new audiences, and circulating ideas. Rather than rehearsing architecture’s bipolar identification with either science or art, the School’s first opportunity is to articulate architecture as a species of politics, as unfolding the potentials for collective life in the polis. Politics is always a problem of formal organization, and form is always a political matter. The call to project new worlds is a simultaneous challenge to formal and political imagination, and the School conducts an ongoing forum on the possibilities for producing political effects within the disciplinary means of architecture.
Because the MSArch is a post-professional degree, it is not NAAB-accredited. Students who are seeking a professional, NAAB-accredited degree should look to our 3-year Master of Architecture degree.