From stage scenery and interior design to civil engineering and urban planning, the Department of the History of Art and Architecture takes as its focus all forms of the built environment. Majors and minors take courses in multiple disciplines from architectural history and studio design to engineering, the humanities, and social sciences. This multidisciplinary curriculum takes full advantage of Tufts’ unique assets in the liberal arts, and in the university’s engineering school, its graduate urban and environmental planning and policy department, and its affiliation with the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. As a capstone, majors complete a senior integrative project in their final semester, either as an independent research project or an internship in a professional office.

The number of majors is typically between forty and fifty, with fifteen to twenty seniors graduating each year with a B.A. degree in architectural studies. Arts and Sciences students successfully use the program to prepare for graduate study in architecture and related areas. But a greater number of majors find careers outside architecture, in such fields as education, business, law, and medicine.

A B.S. in Engineering with a program in architectural studies is available for students interested in a professional career in architecture or in the historical, aesthetic, and engineering aspects of buildings and other structures. This program, offered jointly by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, provides a solid foundation in both the technical aspects of structural systems and the aesthetic and functional characteristics of buildings from an architectural and art history point of view. The flexibility of the B.S. in Engineering degree allows greater concentrations in both art history and studio courses than would otherwise be possible, while providing a coherent basis for graduate work in architecture or design. 

Sample classes:

• Design: Architectural
• Aesthetic Psychology
• Japanese Architecture
• Urban Policy and Planning
• Introduction to Architecture, 1400 to Present
• Architectural and Art History: Archaeology

Photo credit: Joanie Tobin/Tufts University from Photoshelter