History
The School of Architecture and Planning has a rich history, dating from its founding in 1911, and continues a tradition dedicated to the professional education of those who will design, build, and conserve the built environment. At the turn of the twentieth century, gifted architect Frederick Vernon Murphy returned to Washington from the Ecole des Beaux‐Arts in Paris and introduced himself to the fourth rector of The Catholic University of America, Rev. Thomas J. Shahan. In 1911, impressed with Murphy's drawings, Rector Shahan found unused attic space at McMahon Hall for a small Department of Architecture. Together, these two great friends planned the early campus, building Gibbons and Maloney Halls, the University Center, the John K. Mullen of Denver Memorial Library, and the old gymnasium, an immense structure that would play a pivotal role in the history and development of architecture at Catholic University. Returning veterans of WWI forced a growing department to move into the Social Center on the top floor of the old gymnasium. High above the basketball games, the lights were never out as inspired faculty and students captured two national Paris prizes, two American Academy in Rome prizes, four Fontainebleau prizes, and 14 Beaux Arts Institute of Design prizes. In 1928, Thomas H. Locraft won the Paris Prize. He subsequently became the second chair of the department in 1949, following Professor Murphy's retirement.
World War II reduced the department from 50 to six students. However, in 1947, returning veterans swamped the one‐room studio, forcing a second move to the remodeled Navy Barracks. Faculty and courses were greatly expanded, and a new five‐year degree program was introduced. Enrollment and programs continued to grow, and the search for larger and improved facilities continued. During the tenure of the third chair, Dr. Paul A. Goettelmann, from 1959 through the early 1970s, anti‐Vietnam War and environmental concerns affected college campuses nationwide. His leadership and talent as an educator convinced architecture alumnus and benefactor Benjamin T. Rome to establish the Patrick Cardinal O'Boyle Foreign Studies Program in 1970, and more recently to endow this important program in perpetuity. Dr. Goettelmann led the department through difficult years with wisdom and charm. Succeeding chairs, professors Forrest Wilson and Peter Blake, developed innovative programs such as the nationally known Summer Institute for Architecture and the four‐year Master of Architecture program for students holding non‐architectural degrees. Other programs included the four‐year pre-professional degree, with sub-concentrations in design, history, planning, and construction management. During the terms of the chairs Wilson and Blake, enrollment in architecture continued to increase.
In 1984 Professors John Yanik and Walter Ramberg led their ARCH 200 “Fast Track” Graduate Students (now the M.Arch 3 Program) in a three‐and‐a‐half week interior design exercise for the architecture program's design studios and exhibition in nine bays of the recently abandoned old Catholic University gymnasium. Professors Yanik and Ramberg used raw material from this design exercise to develop a schematic design to accommodate the architecture program within the interior of the old gym. With a new chairman, Stanley Hallet, on board, a series of public events was held in the new space that excited students, alumni, and visitors. The success of the project led the university president, the Rev. William J. Byron, S.J., to begin discussions with Mr. Edward M. Crough, general contractor and alumnus of the School of Engineering, and construction was completed in October 1989. In honor of the building’s major donor, the old gym was named the Edward M. Crough Center for Architectural Studies. The Clarence Walton Media Center was developed, and a Model Shop was installed for the construction of furniture and architectural models. The fully equipped Leo A. Daly Jr. Computer Aided Design Laboratory was implemented through private support, primarily that of the office of his son, Leo A. Daly III, a Catholic University alumnus, as was his father. The dedication of the renovated former gymnasium as the Edward M. Crough Center for Architectural Studies on Oct. 19, 1989, brought the history of the architecture program at Catholic University full circle. On May 19, 1992, the Board of Trustees voted to separate the architecture and planning program from the School of Engineering and establish the School of Architecture and Planning, effective Sept. 1, 1992. Stanley Ira Hallet, FAIA, was appointed dean and served until 1996, when he was succeeded by Gregory K. Hunt, FAIA.
In keeping with the spirit of renovation that had earlier given an impressive new identity to the architecture program, a partial renovation of the lower floor of the Crough Center was initiated to provide new studio, shop, and classroom space for the school. Completed in the spring of 1997, this building project demonstrated yet again the university's continued commitment to providing the best facilities for the study of architecture on the Catholic University campus. Under the leadership of Dean Hunt, the school embarked on several new initiatives, including additional foreign study opportunities, extensive curriculum revisions, innovative design‐build programs, and explorations in applied digital design technology.
In 2003, Randall Ott joined the School of Architecture and Planning as dean. Dean Ott advanced the school in many ways, including the revision of the undergraduate curriculum, the creation of four graduate concentrations, including Sacred Space/Cultural Studies, Technology + Media in Architecture + Interiors, Real Estate Development, and Urban Practice. Dean Ott introduced several new allied degree programs, including a Master of Science in Sustainable Design and a Master of Science in Facility Management, and endeavored to provide a stronger educational value to our undergraduate students by offering a variety of degree options, combinations, and minors: a Bachelor of Science in Architecture (B.S. Arch), a Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies (B.A. Arch. Studies), a Bachelor of Environmental Studies (B.S.E.S), and a Bachelor of Architecture/ Bachelor of Civil Engineering (B.S.Arch./B.C.E), a Minor in Architectural Studies, and an Interdisciplinary Minor in Sustainability.
Through his long tenure, Dean Ott also oversaw several significant improvements to The Crough Center, most recently, the installation of a new low-energy lighting system, new desks and chairs, a flooring refurbishment, and the creation of the digital fabrication lab with advanced 3D printing capacity. The Crough Center for Architectural Studies is the only school of architecture in the world that is LEED O+M Certified via LEED Lab, a pilot course for sustainable campus building assessment developed in 2011 under his administration.
On July 1, 2020, we welcomed a new Dean to our school: Mark Ferguson, founding partner of Ferguson & Shamamian Architects, L.L.P. in New York. He was appointed by Catholic University President John Garvey as the next dean of the School of Architecture and Planning. Dean Ferguson has continued the work of Dean Ott by weaving together the offerings for concentrated study at the graduate level into a broad course of study for undergraduate students, providing a foundation in history/theory, construction/structures/systems, and design. The School's focus on stewardship of the public realm is advanced in the design studio by a faculty of scholars, practitioners, and visiting critics who teach design methodology from the perspective of each concentrated course of study. Student projects address issues of social justice, sustainability, and urbanism, requiring students to attain literacy in the traditional, classical, and modern languages of architecture and urban design.