Walter Gropius’s arrival at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1937 helped reshape architectural education in the United States. Drawing on ideas developed at the Bauhaus, Gropius replaced the conventions of Beaux-Arts instruction with an approach centered on experimentation, collaboration, and learning through design. His influence extended from the classroom to Harvard’s campus, most notably through the Harvard Graduate Center, and established principles of design education that continue to shape the GSD today.

In 1935, American architect and educator Joseph F. Hudnut returned to Harvard University. Born in Big Rapids, Michigan, in 1886, he had studied architecture at Harvard before continuing his training at the University of Michigan and Columbia University. As a practicing architect, Hudnut taught architectural design and history at Alabama Polytechnic Institute and the University […]

Since its founding in 1959, the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies has helped shape urban policy, drive innovative practice, and develop the housing leaders of tomorrow.

In 1965, as students protested the escalating war in Vietnam, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, and the federal government sought to revive faltering cities through urban renewal programs, Harvard’s Graduate School of Design launched a groundbreaking initiative: the Laboratory for Computer Graphics. Over the next quarter century, this multidisciplinary […]