School of Architecture and Planning
Deans of the School of Architecture
| William Emerson | 1932-1939 |
| Walter R. MacCornack | 1939-1944 |
| William R. Wurster | 1944-1950 |
| Pietro Belluschi | 1950-1965 |
| Lawrence B. Anderson | 1965-1971 |
| William L. Porter | 1972-1981 |
| John de Monchaux | 1981-1992 |
| William J. Mitchell | 1992-2003 |
| Adèle Naudé Santos | 2004-2014 |
| Mark Jarzombek | Interim Dean, July – December 2014 |
| Hashim Sarkis | 2015- |
Architecture was first taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1868. In 1932, when the president of MIT, Karl T. Compton, reorganized the Institute’s academic structure, the School of Architecture was established, incorporating the Department of Architecture. The head of the Department of Architecture, William Emerson, became the first dean of the School of Architecture.
A course in city planning was added in 1932, and in 1944 the school was renamed the School of Architecture and Planning. In 1947 the Department of City and Regional Planning was established, which was renamed the Department of Urban Studies and Planning in 1969.
The Center for Advanced Visual Studies was founded in 1968 with Gyorgy Kepes as the director. The goal was to encourage collaboration among artists, scientists, and engineers.
The Media Laboratory was formed in 1980 by Nicholas Negroponte and Jerome Wiesner, and opened on October 1, 1985. Bringing together experts from the fields of cognition and learning, electronic music, graphic design, video and holography, as well as computation and human-machine interfaces, the lab focuses on the invention and creative use of digital technologies.
The MIT Center for Real Estate was established in 1983 with the aim of improving the quality of the built environment. An intensive one-year program leads to a Master of Science in Real Estate degree.
Prepared by the Institute Archives, MIT Libraries