University of California, Los Angeles

The UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture (UCLA Arts) is dedicated to training exceptional artists, performers, architects and scholars who are enriched by a global view of the arts and prepared to serve as cultural leaders of the 21st century. Graduate degree programs are offered in the Departments of Architecture and Urban Design, Art, Design | Media Arts, Ethnomusicology, Music, and World Arts and Cultures. The School’s unique curriculum interweaves work in performance, studio and research studies, providing students with a solid creative, artistic and intellectual foundation. World-class faculty provides a depth of expertise and achievement that supports the most ambitious vision a student can bring to the campus. To enrich their coursework students have access to outstanding art collections, exhibitions and performing arts presentations through the School’s internationally acclaimed public arts institutions. The Hammer Museum presents art ranging from Impressionism to Contemporary and the Fowler Museum at UCLA features material culture and art from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. UCLA Live, one of the nation’s premiere arts presenters, brings more than 100 leading performers to the campus each year featuring programs of dance, jazz, world music, blues, international theater, spoken word, classical and popular music.

One of America’s leading public research universities, UCLA is also the most multicultural campus in the nation. Situated five miles from the Pacific Ocean and ten miles from downtown Los Angeles, the campus is within a short drive of mountains, beaches, lakes and deserts. The 419-acre campus is a self-contained community replete with restaurants, medical facilities, gyms, botanical and sculpture gardens, movie theaters and concert halls. Students also have access to a wide range of campus services including a career planning center, a nationally recognized library system and a host of professional, social and cultural organizations.

School Philosophy

UCLA Architecture and Urban Design is a champion of ideas and their articulate expression. Our exceptional faculty teach students to engage the world around them, to see ideas as productive forms of response, and to leverage design and writing as expressions of newly curated perspectives. These ideas are grounded in a critical engagement with the history and theory of architecture and the future contingencies of contemporary culture. Through rigorous inquiry, we interrogate contemporary urban issues and propose possible futures with equal measures of expertise, optimism, and vision.

Our vision is to champion and expand the influence of architecture in society. We don’t simply train architects and urban designers; we train educators, scholars, curators, and artists. Our students produce compelling projects and impact culture broadly across the intersecting vectors of design, media, technology and urbanism. Our IDEAS campus is an incubator for collaborative, cross-disciplinary design research. Students and faculty work with partners across entertainment, mobility, technology and urban strategy applying the analytical and design processes of architecture and urban design to emerging developments in these industries. By engaging with experts from other fields, we expand architecture’s field of influence and leverage design to propose alternative, more intelligent futures.