MA Architecture

Why Iuav University

Iuav has long been recognized as one of the best design and art Schools in Europe and across the world. It is the only university in Italy to provide thorough education and training in architecture, urban planning, design, visual arts, theatre, and fashion. It is deep-rooted in tradition but truly committed to innovation. Its workshops give students the opportunity to interact with high-profile teachers and world-level professionals. Iuav is an international university that offers courses and internships both in Italy and abroad and encourages student exchanges. It teaches the knowledge, skills, and expertise to ensure successful entry into the world’s job market. It is a widely recognized school of excellence in an unparalleled city – Venice – famous for its beauty, culture, and lifestyle.

MA Architecture

The English-taught MA provides education and training for internationally oriented architects, in accordance with the Directive of the European Parliament 2005/36/CE. It gives students excellent preparation for the changing demands of society, both in the technical-scientific area and the humanities. It teaches how to cope with present-day problems related to urban and natural landscapes. It focuses on the conservation and transformation of different architectural and urban contexts, with special attention paid to environmental, economic, and social sustainability. MA Architecture prepares students to tackle pressing architectural, urban, and environmental issues in the national and international scenes. It proposes updated visions of architecture and integrates them with ideas from global culture. It employs the most innovative techniques and methodologies to train generations of digital natives. This also means providing cross-disciplinary competences in – urban projects and theories on the city, with their related issues of sustainable growth and sustainable decrease – Italian cultural heritage and its conservation through regenerative projects that can be applied to other countries and contexts – interior and exhibition design – a global asset for today’s architects.

Studying Architecture in Venice

Venice provides lifelong inspiration. An uninterrupted tradition links Venice to its School of Architecture. Such masters as Carlo Scarpa and Aldo Rossi taught at Iuav, were affected by the beauty of the place and put it into their works. Iuav caters to the needs of rapidly changing professional environments. It makes a commitment to teaching design and planning as interpretations of spaces, knowledge of their history, and synergy of multidisciplinary competencies and skills.

Key features

You will gain comprehensive knowledge and field-specific language skills to enter and contribute to global architectural practice and architectural discourse worldwide. – You will become a professional within the specialist fields of historic building and landscape conservation. – You will be encouraged to be an architect with an informed sense of social responsibility and ethics in relation to campaign design and impact evaluation in developing countries. – You will graduate with a strong awareness of the nature of architecture and its uses in written and visual communication. This will make you ideally suited to a wide range of professional sectors that include: education, publishing, media, international development, and public relations.

Organization&contents

Iuav Master in Architecture focuses on both research and practice. While acknowledging the fundamental role of practice in architectural work, it considers architectural design as a creative process brought about by research-led activities. It offers student-centered learning through problematization, experimentation, and critical reflection by applying a variety of methods and practices to finally acquire advanced skills and reach informed positions. The modules taught in each semester are developed in synergy. They are research-driven in order to present design as a process of inquiry. Each semester includes one integrated design lab and two theoretical courses. The program illustrated below is in line with the project that is currently under approval at MIUR, the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research.

International Perspectives

Iuav collaborates with international cultural institutions and universities to impart a modern, updated education for a globalized world. Students can attend workshops and seminars taught by visiting scholars, professionals, and specialists who are part of the International Exchange Programmes, in partnerships with 130 European universities and 60 non-EU institutions and universities. For the final module, students will be given the possibility to study abroad within the Erasmus+ program in order to complete their thesis.

Iuav University of Venice was established in 1926 as one of the first Architecture Schools in Italy. To this day, it still maintains its unique status. It is a design-themed university focusing on teaching, research, and practice in the design of living spaces and environments (buildings, cities, landscapes, and territory) and in the design of everyday use objects, fashion, and graphics. It has a more recent but well-established tradition in the teaching, research, and practice of visual arts, theatre and performing arts, and multimedia events.

Syllabuses, courses, and learning and workshop activities are organized in 4 bachelor’s degrees and 6 master's degrees covering the fields of architecture, design, fashion, visual arts, urban and regional planning, and theatre . In 2019 a new Master Degree Program in Architecture, entirely taught in English, was activated.

In addition, Iuav offers advanced specialization courses and 9 PhDs .

A learning technique unique to Iuav is the workshop , which is meant to offer both learning opportunities and work experience under the direct supervision of high-profile professionals and teachers.

Iuav has established agreements with important Italian and foreign cultural institutions, museums, and universities such as La Biennale di Venezia, Teatro La Fenice, Palazzo Grassi, Musei Civici Veneziani, Triennale di Milano, Parsons School of Design, MIT, IIT, CCA, and Tongji University. Iuav students are involved with all of these institutions on a regular basis. Iuav is committed to investing in research and development on issues related to the city, the territory and environment, the landscape, infrastructures and mobility, environmental protection and conservation, sustainable design, the history of architecture, new frontiers of design, and arts.

Iuav has highly-equipped laboratories managed by specialists and experts. The university library houses a wide and rare collection of books, databases, and journals. The library is one of the mostimportant libraries in Europe in the fields of architecture, urban planning and thearts.

About 4,200 students attend Iuav University. Admission to both graduate and undergraduate programs is limited – an essential requirement to maintain high teaching standards. International Exchange Programs are currently available in partnerships with 200 European universities . They encourage student and staff mobility in order to raise awareness of common European citizenship, exchange good practices, and share research. Iuav has also established cooperation and exchanges with 70 non-EU institutions and universities and entered into over 30 agreements to boost student mobility.

Studying at Iuav means being open to what is really happening in the world and learning and working with outstanding personalities in the fields of architecture, urban and regional planning, design and visual and performing arts. Iuav was founded by such internationally renowned architects as Carlo Scarpa, Giuseppe Samonà, Manfredo Tafuri, Aldo Rossi, Giovanni Astengo, and Giancarlo De Carlo. Gino Valle, Michele De Lucchi, Nanda Vigo, and Egle Renata Trincanato have all made the history of our School. Notable scholars and professionals such as Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, Frank Lloyd Wright, and, more recently, Alejandro Aravena, Judith Clark, Richard Serra, have been hosted as visiting professors at Iuav and have taught and tutored our students through the years.

International relations

Since its establishment, Università Iuav di Venezia has developed its international academic activities with the aim of improving the quality of its educational programs. It has done so by adapting itself to the principles of free academics and research, and free knowledge circulation, aware of the social role held by university education and scientific research.

Iuav takes on and promotes the international character of its academic programs , given its membership in the European Higher Education Area.

It develops international networks, activating study programs in collaboration with universities in other countries that enable curricula enrichment, exchange of students, and use of languages. All this in order to also foster relations with national and international public and private institutions, presenting Iuav students and graduates to an international level of job orientation.

To pursue these principles, Università Iuav di Venezia constantly develops protocols of understanding and implementation conventions of training and cooperation with universities and institutions in Europe and in the rest of the world, allowing exchanges of teachers and students.

In fact, the university holds about:

• 200 partnerships with European institutions
• 70 partnerships with non-European institutions

These are the reasons for Iuav student satisfaction: the wide choice of partner universities in which to experience international mobility.

Each academic year presents about 350 inbound and outbound exchange programs.

Students are also given the possibility to study and to attend traineeship abroad with the support of the Erasmus+ grant program .

There are also many opportunities for short mobility (international workshops) with the participation of foreign students and professionals.

Iuav also offers several double degree programs : by studying (2/3 semesters) in a Partner University, students have the chance to award a double degree (one from Iuav and the other one from the Partner).

Double degree partners are:

• École Nationale d'Architecture Paris Val de Seine
• Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Chile
• Universidad de Chile, Chile
• Université de Reims-Champagne Ardenne, France
• Universidad Diego Portales, Chile
• Universidad Mayor, Chile
• Tongji University – College of Architecture and Urban Planning, P.R. China