One of the first Architecture Schools in Italy (established in 1926), the UniversitàIuav di Venezia is a ‘themed’ university totally focusing on design. It is a dedicated place for teaching, specialisation and field research in design of living space and environments such as buildings, cities, landscapes, regions as well as design of every-day use objects, cultural, theatrical, multimedia events, fashion and graphics.
The Università Iuav di Venezia is organised into three departments: “Architecture, Construction and Conservation”, "Design and Planning in Complex Environments”, "Architecture and Arts".
Educational programmes, courses and activities are divided into 5 undergraduate degree programmes and 8 graduate degree programmes that are project-driven in fields of architecture, design, fashion, visual arts, urban and regional planning, theatre, in addition to a number of postgraduate specialisation programmes, advanced specialisation courses and 8 research doctorates.
Iuav has successfully devised a unique learning mode that is especially suitable to transmitting project knowledge: workshops are in fact a real workshop for experiencing and learning under the direct guidance of high-calibre professionals and professors in the practice and design teaching fields.
The University has entered into agreements with a number of institutions and cultural subjects in Venice, in the region and abroad (La Biennale di Venezia, TeatroLa Fenice, Palazzo Grassi, Musei Civici Veneziani, teatro Due di Parma, theatres in Rome and Turin, Triennale di Torino, Philadelphia Museum, New York University, MIT of Boston) that involved and still involve students in artistic, design and theatrical productions.
IUAV invests a lot in research concerning issues related to the city, region and environment, landscape, infrastructure and mobility, protection and conservation, sustainable design, history of architecture, the new frontiers of design, arts and theatre.
The University boasts a system of studios equipped with high specialist equipment and expertise, also made available to external clients, along with a library heritage within the architecture and urban planning fields that is a crucial point of reference on a national basis.
About 5,000 students attend this University (admission to the various degree programmes is limited, which is an essential requirement needed to guarantee teaching quality). International Exchange Programmes are currently being offered in cooperation with 130 European universities for the promotion of students’, researchers’ and faculty’s mobility, with a view to developing a common European citizenship, exchange of good practices and sharing of researches. Furthermore, the Università Iuav di Venezia has also established cooperation and exchange relationships with non-EU institutions and universities with which has entered into over 60 agreements aiming at students’ mobility.
Studying at the IUAV means living in an environment that is open to what ishappening throughout the world. It means coming face-to-face with authoritative voices in the fields of architecture, regional planning, arts and design: Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, Frank Lloyd Wright, Carlo Scarpa, Carlo Aymonino, Manfredo Tafuri, Vittorio Gregotti, Gino Valle, Aldo Rossi, Giovanni Astengo, Giancarlo De Carlo, Tadao Ando, and Richard Serra have all been part of ourschool’s history.