i. institutional support and commitment to continuous improvement

School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Department of Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects
Master of Architecture
Master of Architecture with emphasis in Interior Architecture
To deliver an education that embodies creativity, social responsibility, historical perspectives,
technical competence, environmental consciousness, ethical imagination, and an understanding
of current global economic and social changes. To educate students to become innovative
transdisciplinary design leaders, in the disciplines of architecture, interior architecture, and
designed objects.
The faculty of AIADO feel strongly that many different interpretations of design are entering public
discourse and are evolving and converging in a fast changing world where designers need to be
comfortable with uncertainty and complexity—often having to locate their creative imagination in
paradoxical opportunities outside the traditional boundaries of design. Art, design, science, and
entrepreneurial business are teaming to create new protocols and information flows. With the social
shaping of technology, out-dated bureaucratic mechanisms are breaking down around alternative
environmental, social, and political sensibilities. Design is at the core of these changes in translating
thought into the more tangible. The academy responds with significant alternatives in education and,
through collaborative partnerships, a network of informed personalities contribute to the design of
our changing world—making it dense, fluid, and dynamic. How designers explore this complexity is by
definition a highly creative act of design.
At the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and through the programs in AIADO, the faculty
encourage and practice a vibrant engagement with design. They believe that future designers need
to be thinking designers—willing to explore unknown territory and engage problems not yet defined,
taking risks while confident enough to find opportunity in failure. Deep explorations in the studio
context are required where the art of thinking and making translate into the ineffable: at the very
intersection of art, design, and architecture. Explorations that are useful beyond the realm of design
add significant meaning to environments across all scales. These explorations challenge the fluid
borderline that defines the spatial, the world of objects, and the many opportunities in cognitive
and non-cognitive environments yet to be explored. Play and risk are taken seriously. The faculty
values freedom but expects accountability. With the rigor of thinking flowing from this philosophical
approach, the School is encouraging a new kind of relevance for future designers and architects.
The AIADO department launches future individual voices that are willing to lead in the fast mutating
cultural landscapes—changing the field from the inside out while connecting past traditions with future
possibilities.
D) History of the Program
The MArch program may only be four years old, but its innovative relationship to design and space
has a long history. In 1941 Marya Lilien began teaching the first evening classes in interior architecture
at SAIC. Her students—taught on the principles Lilien had acquired while studying with Frank Lloyd
Wright at Taliesin—learned to build from the inside out, creating spaces that were functional, beautiful,
and well integrated. By 1945, a new Department of Interior Architecture was established. Its curriculum
involved a year of general foundation studies, followed by three years of four design sessions and two
technical sessions per week. The latter sessions included descriptive geometry, vital for delineating
objects in space, and the course became a magnet for sculpture students as well as design students.
Drafting, Perspective, Anatomy of Interiors, and the History of Furniture were all taught by Lilien, who
was a one-woman department for most of her tenure at the School. With its fundamentally sound
principles, the curriculum remained fairly constant over the next two decades.
With Marya Lilien’s retirement in 1968, the existing department was renamed Environmental Design,
with some changes in curriculum as befit the times. New faculty, most significantly John Kurtich,
in Interior Architecture as well as faculty in Design and Performance areas adopted the goal of
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