Photo: Addison Godel, used with permission. The Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning (TCAUP) at the University of Michigan offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in architecture, and graduate degrees only in urban planning and urban design. The college has an enrollment of around 600, and various rankings place its programs among the top tier nationally.
The college's roots date to the 1906 establishment of architecture degrees at Michigan by Emil Lorch within the school's then-Department of Engineering. The expansive top-floor windows of the college's long-time home, Central Campus' Lorch Hall, were designed to allow natural light into the studios. In 1974, the College moved into the Art+Architecture Building on North Campus (shared with the Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design), where it remains to this day. Many students believe there to be intentional irony in the fact that the college is located in the ugliest and worst-laid out building on Ann Arbor's most anti-urban campus.
In 1999, shopping mall developer A. Alfred Taubman donated $30 million to the College, then the largest single private donation ever to an architecture program, giving the college its current name. (After Taubman's 2002 conviction for his role in a price-fixing scandal at auction house Sotheby's, some students and faculty unsuccessfully agitated to remove his name.)
Website: http://taubmancollege.umich.edu/
Event recordings on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/taubmancollege
Wikipedia: Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
