History
John Llewellyn Skinner initiated the first program in architecture at the University of Miami in 1927-28. Skinner was a graduate in architecture from the University of Toronto and Harvard University. After winning Harvard’s Nelson Robinson Travelling Fellowship, Skinner went to the American Academy in Rome. He left his position as head of the department of architecture at Georgia Tech to join Phineas Paist, the noted Philadelphia architect, and Denman Fink, an artist whose work was in the collections of the National Academy and the Art Institute of Chicago, in the founding of the architecture program at the University of Miami. Fink was also known for his luxuriant drawings and paintings of the buildings he and Paist imagined for Coral Gables, including the University of Miami’s Merrick Building. As George Merrick’s uncle, Fink was integral to the emerging architecture of Coral Gables which fused building traditions from Central and Latin American colonial architecture.
The student work of the young program was shown in the third and fourth annual exhibitions of the Architectural League of Greater Miami in 1931 and 1932. The watercolors are similar to the Beaux-Arts esquisse work common to the period, since many schools including Miami utilized the competition problems issued by the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects in New York. The studies, however, of local buildings by Jewell Harden and Bonnie Munroe reveal the presence of women students, which would have distinguished the program from most of the rest of the country and an interest in the vernacular which was also notable in a period when most academic architecture focused on the formal design of a prominent buildings.
By the mid-1930’s a number of factors caused the University to reduce its scale of operation and the architecture program was one of the first affected. Charlton W. Tebeau, author of The University of Miami A Golden Anniversary History 1926-1976, briefly described Professor Skinner’s collaboration with a group of dissident faculty who called for an independent investigation of President Ashe. Ashe prevailed and Skinner left the University. The architecture program did not re-emerge until 1950 in the new College of Engineering in the department of architectural engineering. Professor Jan Hochstim entered that program and graduated in 1954. He provides a valued present day link to the tradition of architecture at the University of Miami.
By 1966, after his graduation from Illinois, Professor Hochstim joined the faculty under the leadership of James Elliott Branch. Branch had brought a number of faculty from his years at Illinois and they created a focus for the five-year bachelor of architecture program which they described as “a sequence of courses in architectural design, structural design, construction, building materials, city planning, building equipment, office practice, and the humanities (Bulletin 1965, 249).” The program would lead “to the development of architects, who as enlightened individuals, responsible citizens, and resourceful professional men, will serve their society in attaining a worthy architecture (Bulletin 1965, 249).” Although the courses have broadened and the society of men has opened to become almost 50% women, the essential goal of contributing to a better world remains at the heart of the program.
When President Foote arrived in 1981, he initiated consideration of 3 new schools, Architecture, Communication and International Studies. By 1983, the School of Architecture achieved autonomy, moving to its current location on campus, a group of international style buildings designed in 1947 by Marion Manley, South Florida’s first woman architect. Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk was a faculty member at the opening days of the new school and with Adjunct Professor Andres Duany subsequently founded the school’s graduate program in Suburb and Town Design. That graduate program was important in attracting the interest of faculty and students to the first professional M. Arch. degree which was initially awarded to the class of 1993.
In 1992, the School participated in post Hurricane Andrew charrettes and focused all students on issues of rebuilding. It was during this period that the Center for Urban and Community Design (CUCD) was established.
In 1995, faculty member Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk became Dean of the School, and in 2006 she received the additional title of Distinguished Professor of the University.
In 2001, the School celebrated the University’s 75th Anniversary with a reception and exhibition of alumni work “Building Through Time: the Making of a School of Architecture 1926 ¡V 2001.” The same year, the Knight Program in Community Building was formed through a grant from the Knight Foundation.
In 2003, the fundraising campaign for a new building continued as the School broke ground for its long awaited architecture center. Designed by renowned European architect Leon Krier, the building was dedicated as the Jorge M. Perez Architecture Center in October of 2005 and now serves as the hub of the Architecture campus.
In January of 2007, the Congress for the New Urbanism Florida Chapter awarded the School of Architecture the John Nolen Medal for Contributions to Urbanism in Florida. This is the highest honor conferred by the Chapter and recognizes the School’s superior effort in furthering the principles of the Charter of the New Urbanism in Florida.
At present the School has nearly 400 students, including 62 graduate students. There are 32 full-time faculty and 37 part-time faculty. More than 50 percent of the School’s students participate in study-abroad programs based in Europe, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America.
